Grayscale launches Maker fund, whales start accumulating

Whales started accumulating Maker tokens after Grayscale announced the MakerDAO Trust.

On August 13, leading crypto asset manager Grayscale launched its MakerDAO (MKR) investment fund. Unlike its publicly traded spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded funds, only “accredited investors” can invest in the MakerDAO Trust.

MakerDAO is one of the biggest names in the decentralized finance industry and the decentralized autonomous organization behind the third-largest stablecoin Dai (DAI).

Thanks to Grayscale’s bullish announcement, MKR is up 7.9% in the last 24 hours and is trading at $2,150 at press time. The asset’s market cap has surpassed $2 billion, making it the 39th largest cryptocurrency.

MKR price, supply and whale activity on exchanges – August 14 | Source: Santiment

Maker’s daily trading volume also increased by 64 percent, reaching $144 million.

According to Santiment’s data, the number of whale transactions involving at least $100,000 worth of MKR increased from 65 to 100 in the past day.

On the other hand, according to Santiment’s data, the supply of MKR on exchanges dropped from 123,100 to 121,340 tokens. This move suggests that whales have started accumulating MKR as the Grayscale announcement triggered increased demand.

According to data from the market intelligence platform, approximately 78.4% of the circulating Maker supply, or 729,330 MKR tokens, are in the hands of whales.

At this point, increased price volatility could be normal for the MKR price given the high whale activity around the asset.