Digital Currency Group (DCG), the parent of Grayscale, said it has authorized the purchase of up to $750 million worth of the lagging shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTCQX: GBTC), up from a $250 million level earlier.
In an announcement Monday, DCG, which is also the parent company of CoinDesk, said it had already purchased $193.5 million GBTC shares as of April 30.
GBTC has been trading at a discount for several months in the face of competition from other closed-end bitcoin funds, bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in Canada and the prospect that a bitcoin ETF could be approved in the U.S. sometime in the next year.
Repurchasing shares is a common tool among companies that are trying to increase the price of their shares by creating demand for the shares while decreasing the number of shares outstanding.