• The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) will unlock over 16,000 Bitcoin-linked stocks ahead this month.
• Market analysts remain divided over the Bitcoin price volatility going ahead.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) has been showing strong volatility over the last few weeks and will continue this behavior in July as well. All eyes are on the unlocking of the January Grayscale Bitcoin Fund (GBTC), scheduled ahead this month on July 18.

As per data on Bybt, on July 18, GBTC stocks worth 41852.26 BTC shall be unlocked. This will be the largest single-day unlocking of the GBTC shares so far in history.

Analysts expect that this unlocking will lead to higher Bitcoin price volatility ahead of this month. Over the last few weeks, the BTC price has been oscillating in the price range of $30,000-$35,000. Earlier this week, BTC made a short attempt to move past $35,000 levels, however, failed to sustain them.

Analysts Divided Over GBTC Share Fluctuations

While crypto analysts have been seriously considering the impact of this unlocking on the price of BTC, we have been getting mixed views about this. Last month, JPMorgan strategists noted that the unlocking of GBTC shares can put further downward pressure on the price of Bitcoin (BTC).

The JPMorgan analysts have been overall bearish on the future price movement of BTC and expect its price to drop to $25,000 along with long-term capitulation kicking in.

While on the other hand, some crypto analysts have a counter view to this. Earlier in January 2021, the GBTC shares (OTCMKTS: GBTC) were trading at around a 20% premium to NAV. Now, they as trading at over 8% discount to NAV as per the latest data from YCharts.

Thus, analysts believe that with the recent unlocking, investors won’t be selling that shares at a discounted rate. This will help to narrow down the gap with the GBTC discount.

Last month, Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment purchased over 1 million additional GBTC shares. The firm now holds over 8 million GBTC shares in total. As of Friday, July 2 closing the GBTC shares were trading at a price of $28.58 per share.