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It's Frriiddaayyy Folks! Yesterday, we learned that several ETF issuers are now filing for a combined Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF. Today, the most covered news is about Upbit overtaking both Coinbase and OKX in spot trading and Razzlekhan pleading guilty to the Bitfinex hack. The price of Bitcoin is currently trading at $29,130.11. Let's dive into the news...
BITCOIN
New data from market intelligence firm Santiment reveals that deep-pocketed Bitcoin (BTC) investors have splurged over $750 million on the king crypto during the last three months. But, Bitcoin held in addresses tied to over-the-counter desks has declined to the lowest level since June 15 and Tone Vays revealed that he’s lowering the Bitcoin allocation in his portfolio, Vays tells his 122,000 YouTube subscribers that chances of BTC falling are now high as the selling pressure is elevated.
The increase in BTC options volume on the CME suggests that institutions might be hedging their positions. According to the Big Four accounting firm KPMG, Bitcoin consistently provides value despite being an often-misunderstood technology and asset class. The SEC has so far received 52 letters from the public about proposed spot bitcoin ETFs.
Publicly bitcoin miners are pushing through, with two of them seeing modest hashing power gains in July and another two staying flat. Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) solidified its position in July as the world's largest publicly traded bitcoin miner by self-mining hashrate, meaning computing power in its facilities that mines for its own wallets as opposed to those for clients. To avoid being in the red, publicly-listed Bitcoin mining companies will need the BTC price to be at least $98,000 by the 2024 halving. Larger miners with a low cost of production and low debt are likely to be the big beneficiaries of increased capacity, the report said.
ALTCOINS
Ethereum shows depressing tendencies on market as future of asset looks grim. However some believe that, Ethereum, despite current short-term weakness, presents golden midterm opportunity, with analysts predicting shift from Bitcoin to altcoins. After reaching a peak of over $0.84 in 2023 following Ripple’s partial legal win against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the price of XRP has experienced a significant correction.
CBDC
The Digital Dollar Project (DDP) announced the completion of a pilot study of remittance payments to the Philippines using a simulated retail central bank digital currency (rCBDC). Western Union and BDO Unibank were partners in the project.
EXCHANGES
Coinbase has “full confidence” in its arguments made to the court, Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at Coinbase, said in an earnings call on Thursday. Coinbase (COIN), the biggest publicly traded U.S. crypto exchange, announced that Base, its layer-2 blockchain built with Optimism's OP Stack, will open to the public on Aug. 9. South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit overtook both Coinbase and OKX in terms of spot trading volume in July for the first time. Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, will open trading in bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) with First Digital's FDUSD stablecoin with zero fees beginning today. Bitcoin sales on Cash App jumped 34% in the second quarter from the same period last year to a whopping $2.4 billion.
LEGISLATION/REGULATION
A group of Democratic senators sent a letter to the US Department of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service asking for information on when new cryptocurrency tax guidance will come as a deadline quickly approaches. The SEC announced Thursday it had obtained a temporary asset freeze and a restraining order against an alleged fraudulent scheme based in Utah to sell crypto to hundreds of U.S. investors that raised approximately $50 million.
ATTACKS/HACKS/SCAMS
The contagion from the recent Curve Finance attack on the DeFi ecosystem appears to have been contained, according to JPMorgan. Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov is almost halfway to paying off his $80 million in debt with a new round of over-the-counter sales of the Curve (CRV) token.
Curve Finance and other victims of this week’s crypto lending heist have offered their hackers a 10% bounty in exchange for the return of the rest of their tokens.
New York resident Ilya Lichtenstein, the husband of Heather Morgan, an entrepreneur and rapper known as “Razzlekhan,” revealed himself as the hacker who executed a multimillion-dollar exploit of crypto exchange Bitfinex in 2016 while pleading guilty to money laundering conspiracy charges at a hearing at the U.S. District Court in Washington yesterday.
WATCH
LISTEN
Podcast of the Day: Read_754 - Bitcoin Is Not Crypto, The SEC Confirms | Bitcoin Audible
Other Podcast
- Binance: Too Big to Jail | The Breakdown
- The Chopping Block: Who’s to Blame for the Curve Hack? - | Unchained
- Saylor To Buy $750M Worth Of Bitcoin, An ETF Will Be Approved And You Are Not Bullish Enough! | TWOAS
- The Unwavering Influence of Bitcoin & Crypto | TCCS
- Crowd Funding with Bitcoin | Bitcoin Magazine
- Weekly Roundup 08/04/23 (SEC vs HEX, Base and BALD, Curve hacked) | OTB
- Bitcoin is the Perfect ESG Asset with Sam Callahan and The Progressive's Case for Bitcoin with Jason Maier | TBCP
Sources:
Bitcoin Analysis (TDH | TDH | TDH | Cryptoglobe | Coindesk | Coindesk)
Bitcoin Spot ETF (TB)
Bitcoin Miners (Blockworks | Coindesk | Cointelegraph | Coindesk)
Ethereum (UToday | UToday | Finbold)
XRP (Finbold | UToday)
Digital Dollar (Cointelegraph)
Coinbase vs SEC (TB | Cointelegraph)
Coinbase Base (Coindesk | TB | CryptoPotato)
Upbit (Cointelegraph | Coindesk | Cryptoglobe | Blockworks)
Binance (Coindesk)
Cash App (TB | Blockworks | Cointelegraph)
Taxation (Blockworks)
Curve Hack (TB | TB | Coindesk | Coindesk)
Scams (Coindesk)
Bitfinex Hack (Coindesk | TB | Cointelegraph | Blockworks | TDH)
