Bitcoin went down to four digits on Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), falling to a low of about $9,000 per bitcoin.

That’s at an ever widening discount of 42% at some point, with it somewhat recovering now yet bitcoin at Grayscale is still trading at the last bear level.

One GBTC share is currently going for $9.69. That’s worth 0.00091517 BTC, making it circa $9,700 for 0.91 bitcoin.

Adding the extra 0.09 BTC at a circa 40% discount, brings the current price of bitcoin on GBTC to $10,500.

By comparison the global price is at $16,650, making the current discount 37% or a fairly massive $6,000.

This situation has been ongoing for now months with no recovery seen at GBTC, instead it has gotten worse.

That’s because you can’t easily arbitrage the shares by redeeming them for BTC with just 20,000 bitcoin withdrawn since February 2021 out of 630,000 currently in custody.

Grayscale has filed to convert the trust into an ETF, which SEC rejected. They’ve sued SEC for that rejection, with the court case now probably taking another year or two.

In the meantime at these four digit rates at least some market participants might find the discount attractive as in a couple of years it can turn into a premium if no ETF is still approved in USA.

That’s in part because US based institutional investors seem to prefer GBTC, even though there are now many free floating ETNs and ETFs in Europe and Canada.

For now however the market seems to think otherwise, finding GBTC a lot less attractive than bitcoin itself.