Bitfinex’s Bitcoin Bet: “We’re In, Who’s With Us?”
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Here’s what’s in today’s issue:
- David shares his thoughts on Bitfinex holding BTC on balance sheet, a crypto policy report for the G20 Summit, South Korean bank partnering with BitGo, Grayscale want’s to meet with the SEC & Visa using Solana for USDC payments.
- Rekt Capital has the latest technical analysis for you on the market.
- Erik has an article on real-world assets (RWAs) moving on-chain.
- In case you missed it by Rebecca.
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Bitfinex Holds Bitcoin on Balance Sheet
Bitfinex, a CoinMarketCap top-ten crypto exchange, holds bitcoin on its balance sheet. That’s according to The Block via an unnamed source with “direct knowledge on the matter.”
The source was unwilling to provide any figures as to exactly how much bitcoin Bitfinex holds, but they did disclose that the exchange “has historically kept part of its trading fee earnings in bitcoin”.
Bitfinex must want the market to know its strategy, because the timing between this anonymous disclosure and a recent tweet by the exchange’s CTO, Paolo Ardoino, is likely not a coincidence.
In his tweet, Ardoino makes a moral appeal for other crypto exchanges to follow Bitfinex’s investment strategy, given the financial benefits they’ve received from their users trading the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
Regardless of the reasoning, what’s important (and good to see) is that companies, institutions, and countries are choosing bitcoin as a treasury reserve. Because every time an entity chooses bitcoin (think MicroStrategy, Massachusetts Mutual, El Salvador), three things happen:
- More supply is removed from the market,
- Bitcoin’s price floor is raised and/or hardened; and,
- Sidelined entities are incentivized to do the same because the global community that backs a free and sound form of money has just grown stronger.
Who’s next?
FSB and IMF to Deliver Global Crypto Policy Report at G20 Summit
Now to those who oppose free and sound money: the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
These two quasi-international governmental agencies are set to deliver a global crypto policy paper (titled “The Synthesis Paper on Policies for Crypto-Assets”) at the G20 New Delhi summit happening this weekend.
It sounds like a real page-turner.
Enter FSB’s Chair, Klaas Knot, whom we introduced back in May when he was telling G7 finance ministers how to do their jobs. Now Klaas has graduated to the G20.
In an open letter to G20 leaders that was published Tuesday, Klaas gave a primer of the crypto paper’s main points:
- The global financial system is going through a “structural change” in part due to stablecoins.
- Stablecoins need to be monitored and regulated. The FSB is currently working with state-sponsored banks and international organizations to make this happen.
- Cryptocurrencies pose “macroeconomic risks relating to monetary sovereignty”. Developing economies are particularly at risk.
- The right policies, coordination, cooperation, data sharing, and “institutional capacity beyond G20 jurisdictions” are necessary to mitigate these risks.
There’s a lot to say with regards to all of this, but I’ll just mention one: calling crypto a macroeconomic risk to monetary sovereignty is spot on.
But exactly whose sovereignty is Klaas referring to? The everyday person’s or the centrally-banked crony capitalist’s?
South Korea’s KEB Hana Bank Partners with BitGo for Crypto Custody Services
Bullish news coming out of South Korea’s Blockchain Week conference, which is currently being held in Seoul.
KEB Hana Bank and BitGo announced a joint partnership to offer digital asset custodial services to Hana’s clients.
The program is set to launch in the latter half of 2024. It’s not clear at this point if the services will be targeted towards the bank’s retail or institutional clients.
KEB Hana is South Korea’s second largest bank in terms of assets held ($462T Korean won) as of 2022. The bank is basically South Korea’s Bank of America. BitGo is a California-based crypto trust and security company.
KEB Hana has been experimenting with crypto for a while now. Earlier this summer, it was reported that the bank was researching tokenized certificates of deposit (CDs) on the blockchain. And last year KEB Hana opened a metaverse bank branch on Sandbox.
KEB Hana’s crypto move is occurring within a larger shift towards digital assets in South Korea.
More than half the population has a basic understanding of digital assets, the government has passed a number of legislative measures which are generally seen as good for the industry, and the newish president has expressed pro-crypto sentiments.
Grayscale to SEC: Wanna Meet Up?
On Tuesday, Grayscale lawyers penned a letter to the SEC requesting a meeting “as soon as practical to discuss the way forward” with regards to converting GBTC into a spot bitcoin ETF.
Grayscale’s letter is a follow-up in response to a ruling by the D.C. Court of Appeals last week which ordered the SEC to re-review the company’s spot bitcoin ETF application.
In the letter, Grayscale’s lawyers argue that because:
- The Court ruled that spot and futures bitcoin ETFs are the same in terms of market manipulation risks, and
- The SEC has already approved multiple futures bitcoin ETFs, then
- There are no more conceivable reasons available for a spot bitcoin ETF to be rejected.
Grayscale’s lawyers also noted that more delays only further harm GBTC investors. And the proof?
GBTC has been trading at a massive discount to BTC, but in response to the Court’s ruling, that discount shrunk from -24.89% to -18.05% within one trading day.
You can bet your bottom dollar that GBTC investors are clamoring for Grayscale and the SEC to kiss and make up.
Visa Using Solana for USDC Payments
Now time for some huge altcoin news. On Tuesday, Visa announced that it’s using the Solana blockchain to settle USDC payments between the banks of consumers and merchants.
In their announcement, the global payments behemoth stated that a growing number of their merchant-clients are preferring settlement in stablecoins over fiat.
Thus, Visa’s use of Solana as a payment rail is part of the company’s broader strategy to avoid becoming the next BlockBuster Video.
Visa’s addition of Solana comes two years after the company’s USDC pilot program on Ethereum. Visa stated that they chose Solana because it provides them a way to move stablecoins quickly and for cheap.
Visa’s adoption of Solana is a much-needed boost for the blockchain, as Solana has had a rough time over the past two years. Solana was plagued with 14 outages in 2022 and has been losing market share and users to Ethereum’s robust L2 ecosystem.
But this is a big development to keep your eyes on. Let’s see if Solana can use Visa’s adoption to turn the ship around.
In today’s edition of the Rekt Capital Newsletter, the following cryptocurrencies will be analysed and discussed:
- Fetch ai (FET)
- Woo Network (WOO)
- Dogecoin (DOGE)
- Neo (NEO)
- Ocean Protocol (OCEAN)
Let’s dive in.
Fetch ai — FET/USDT
Last week, we spoke about a potential reversal for FET:
Here is today’s update:
FET has rallied +20% to the upside, reversing from the green area of support and rallying into the blue resistance level ahead.
It would be bullish of course for FET to reclaim the blue level as support because reclaiming the blue level would enable FET to rally even beyond the black resistance at $0.36.
For the moment however, it is acting as resistance.
In fact, FET has been upside wicking into this resistance for the past 2.5 months now, failing to reclaim this blue level as support each time.
Therefore technically — FET is as a result locked into a range (green box support to blue horizontal resistance) until further notice.
Continued rejection at the blue resistance could force price back into the green region, as has been the case over the past 2.5 months.
Woo Network — WOO/USDT
In last week’s edition, we spoke about how important it was for WOO to continue holding the base of its blue triangle as support following its +24% rally.
And how important it was for price to avoid a Weekly Close below the base of the pattern.
Here is today’s update:
WOO has Weekly Closed below the base of the pattern last week and this week price is upside wicking into the base of the triangle, as if turning the base of the triangle into new resistance.
In doing so, WOO is taking the necessary steps to confirm the breakdown.
To avoid confirming this breakdown, WOO needs to reclaim the base of the triangle as support, ideally Weekly Closing above it.
Otherwise, it could be set for further downside.
Let’s look at the monthly timeframe to get a better idea of WOO’s price predicament:
WOO Monthly Closed below the red level ($0.17).
This is significant as around this time last year, WOO had done the same a rejected quite strongly from the red resistance.
Late 2022, early 2023 WOO had Monthly Closed above red and even turned it into support the following month to produce great upside.
So it’s clear now that this level is a key reference point for price and that WOO may soon be turning this red level back into resistance.
Thus, a relief rally into the red level could occur this month, and if WOO isn’t able to reclaim red and/or Monthly Close above red, then price could follow the red path down to the blue level which is the next immediate major support on the Monthly timeframe.
WOO has a lot of ground to cover this month if it is to stave off further downside.
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Real-world Assets On-Chain: One of Crypto’s Biggest Potential Growth Markets
It’s said to be potentially one of the catalysts of the next bull run: real-world assets on-chain.
Indeed, a transparent, easily accessible ledger of stuff we currently trade in the traditional financial system would be nice to have.
Which protocols are promising? And which pitfalls come with tokenizing stuff?
Crypto Market News
- The US SEC has delayed a decision on all spot Bitcoin ETF applications from BlackRock, WisdomTree, Invesco, VanEck, Wise Origin, Bitwise and Valkyrie. Source
- Bitcoin ETFs now have a 75% chance of approval this year according to Bloomberg analysts. Source
- JP Morgan has said the SEC would likely be forced to approve a spot Bitcoin ETF after Grayscale’s win. Source
- Robinhood has added wallet support for Bitcoin and Dogecoin. Source
- Robinhood’s wallet is the 5th largest Ethereum holding with $2.54 billion in ETH, according to Arkham Intelligence. Source
- Robinhood has bought back 55M shares of the company previously held by Sam Bankman-Fried. Source
- Nexo and Mastercard has launched a crypto debit and credit card for citizens in the European Economic Area (EEA). Source
- Arkham Intelligence has identified over 500 wallets related to Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust. Source
- A Chinese court has contradicted the government’s stance on digital currencies by declaring them to be legal property. Source
- Women hold just 6% of crypto CEO roles among 50 leading crypto and blockchain companies according to a new study. Source
- Crypto adoption in Turkey has increased from 40% to 52% in the last year according to a study by KuCoin. Source
- Crypto casino Stake has been hacked for $40M after an exploit relating to a private key leak. Source
Coins and Projects
- El Salvador will include Bitcoin in the school curriculum by 2024. Source
- Colorado’s Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has announced it is accepting Bitcoin and crypto as a payment option through PayPal. Source
- Ethereum liquid staking providers have either implemented or are working to launch a 22% market share limit to ensure Ethereum remains decentralized. Source
- MetaMask has launched a feature allowing users to sell ETH for fiat in the US, UK, and parts of Europe. Source
- Base’s total-value locked (TVL) has doubled to $380M just days after the launch of Aerodrome. Source
- USDC has launched natively on both Base and Optimism networks. Source
- Tether has become one of the top buyers of US Treasury bills, placing in the top 22 biggest holders ranking above Spain, Mexico, Australia, and UAE. Source
- PancakeSwap has launched on Coinbase’s Base network as part of its continued multi-chain expansion. Source
- StarkWare has partnered with a London-based startup called Herodotus to launch storage proofs to verify Ethereum’s historical data. Source
- Chainlink has completed an experiment with SWIFT which included transferring tokenized value across private and public blockchains. Source
- Binance is to gradually end support for its BUSD stablecoin starting with delisting it as a loanable asset and ceasing withdrawals of BUSD-pegged tokens. Source
- Binance’s head of product has confirmed he is leaving the company after almost two years. Source
- Coinbase has listed PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin for trading. Source
- Ethereum NFTs have hit their lowest monthly trading volumes in two years. Source
- MakerDAO’s co-founder has proposed creating a fork of Solana to build a native chain. Source
- Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has sold his MakerDAO stake worth around $580K after Maker’s proposal to fork Solana. Source
- Solana’s co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has shown support for Maker’s proposal to fork the network calling it a “win for open source.” Source
- Visa has expanded its USDC stablecoin settlements to the Solana blockchain. Source
- Solana has been named “the most loved altcoin amongst investors at present” by CoinShares. Source
- Gala Games CEO is suing its co-founder for theft of $130M GALA tokens, tanking the token by 13%. Source
- Ripple’s legal team has opposed the SEC’s appeal over the XRP deemed not a security ruling. Source
- Bitfinex holds bitcoin on its balance sheet as it has historically kept part of its trading fee earnings in bitcoin. Source
Macro News
- Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said on social media platform X (Twitter) that he will be dropping out of the US presidential race. Source
- The Fed is likely to take an incremental approach to developing a CBDC, according to a Royal Bank of Canada analyst. Source
- The London Stock Exchange has drawn up plans to offer blockchain-based trading. Source
- Oil prices have settled at 10-month highs as Saudi Arabia and Russia have extended their voluntary supply cuts to the end of the year. Source
Thank you so much for your support, and I truly hope that today’s issue will give you insights needed to help you master your wealth.
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