Over the past month, toncoin (TON) has appreciated by 18.4% against the U.S. dollar, achieving a new all-time high last week. Current data indicates that the top ten TON chain coins, including TON, have a combined value of more than billion. Gaming and Meme Tokens Drive TON’s Market Growth to Billion The Open […]
Bitcoin News
Hashdex Files For First-Ever Combined Ethereum And Bitcoin ETF
In a significant development within the cryptocurrency industry, asset manager Hashdex recently submitted an application to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a combined spot Ethereum and Bitcoin ETF.
Ethereum And Bitcoin ETF Merge?
Bloomberg ETF expert James Seyffart noted that Hashdex’s proposed ETF would be market cap-weighted and could potentially accommodate additional digital assets as they gain approval from the SEC.
Hashdex already operates a successful crypto index ETF in Brazil, known as HASH11, which primarily consists of Bitcoin and Ethereum, making it a logical step to introduce a similar offering to the US market, according to Seyffart.
Notably, the filing with the SEC states that Hashdex plans to use the services of at least two custodians, Coinbase and BitGo, to ensure the safe storage of the underlying assets.
While spot Ethereum ETFs in the US are yet to receive full approval from the SEC, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas has suggested an estimated launch date of July 2nd based on minor feedback received by issuers.
This development indicates that the SEC’s review process for spot Ethereum ETFs is nearing completion, setting the stage for potential market expansion and increased investment opportunities.
Hashdex’s decision to launch a joint Ethereum and Bitcoin ETF aligns with their belief that as cryptocurrencies gain mainstream acceptance, new assets will emerge to disrupt the market share of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Crypto Indices
In a recent blog post analyzing the current state of the market, the asset manager explained that by offering a diverse basket of crypto assets through an index-based approach, Hashdex aims to provide investors with exposure to the growth potential of these alternative digital assets.
The asset manager’s success in Brazil, where crypto index ETFs have surpassed single-asset products, underscores the benefits of diversification and regulated ETF structures.
Hashdex anticipates this trend to expand to Europe and eventually the US, as “evolving regulations” and growing demand from professional investors and wealth managers favor diversified exposure.
Hashdex believes that crypto indices offer several advantages for investors, including risk mitigation, transparency, standardization, and a time-tested methodology. The Hashdex blog post further reads:
The crypto market remains a complex landscape prone to volatility, and this will not change any time soon. Identifying individual winners and losers has always been a challenge in traditional markets, and becomes even more so with an emerging asset class like crypto. However, crypto indices offer a standardized approach to capturing overall market performance, serving as a guidepost in the ever-evolving digital asset landscape.
Ultimately, Hashdex’s filing for a joint Ethereum and Bitcoin ETF signifies a pivotal moment in expanding the accessibility of crypto investments. With the potential approval of spot Ethereum ETFs and the increasing adoption of diversified crypto index strategies, the stage is set for a brighter future for investors seeking exposure to the digital asset space.
As of this writing, the largest cryptocurrency on the market, Bitcoin, continues its downward trend, falling 3.3% in 24 hours, resulting in a current trading price of ,600.
Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com
New Bitcoin ETFs and Grayscale Control a Combined 4% of BTC Supply, Valued at $53 Billion
The latest figures reveal that the nine new spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) now control 390,525.3 bitcoins, valued at just over billion at current market rates. These nine ETFs are rapidly approaching the holdings of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which presently has 405,713.31 bitcoins in its possession. Emerging Bitcoin ETFs Challenge Grayscale’s Reign Collectively, […]
Bitcoin News
Blackrock and Fidelity ETFs Lead the Charge in Bitcoin Accumulation, Holding Over $2.6 Billion in Combined BTC Assets
Recent data reveals that Blackrock, the globe’s leading asset manager boasting over nine trillion in assets under management (AUM), now possesses 33,430.56 bitcoin, valued at approximately .34 billion. Similarly, the financial powerhouse Fidelity has increased its bitcoin holdings, with the Fidelity Wise Origin spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) now owning 30,169.54 bitcoin, equivalent to around .26 billion in value.
Financial Titans Blackrock and Fidelity Amplify Bitcoin Holdings
The latest figures, as of January 19, 2024, show that Blackrock’s Ishares IBIT spot bitcoin ETF has expanded its bitcoin reserves to 33,430.56 BTC, marking a rise of 4,808.56 BTC since their previous disclosure. The value of this digital currency cache, as of January 22, 2024, is pegged at .34 billion, based on the current BTC exchange rates. Blackrock’s IBIT stands out as the second-largest spot bitcoin ETF in terms of reserves, trailing only behind Grayscale’s GBTC.
Hot on Blackrock’s heels, Fidelity’s FBTC is also on a bitcoin accumulation spree. As reported on their website on January 22, 2024, Fidelity now holds 30,169.54 bitcoin, with a market value of .26 billion.
Both the IBIT and FBTC ETFs impose a 0.25% management fee, with Blackrock offering an introductory fee of 0.12% for the first six months. In contrast, Fidelity’s ETF has a promotional offer of zero fees until July 31, 2024, or roughly six months.
In the meantime, Bitwise’s BITB spot bitcoin ETF witnessed a modest growth from 10,136 BTC to 10,152 BTC. Valkyrie’s BRRR spot bitcoin ETF also recorded a slight increase, from 1,712 BTC to 1,737.23 BTC. BITB is enticing investors with zero fees for the first six months, while BRRR is waiving fees for three months.
Franklin Templeton‘s EZBC fund reported a growth in its bitcoin holdings from 1,131 BTC on January 14 to 1,160 BTC by January 21, 2024. Despite these increases, none of the new spot bitcoin ETFs have yet to reach the reserve levels held by Blackrock and Fidelity.
What do you think about Blackrock’s and Fidelity’s bitcoin caches? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
SEC’s Classification of So-Called Crypto Securities Amounts to $98 Billion in Combined Value
Throughout the last year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has identified numerous crypto assets as securities in cases involving Binance, Bittrex, Coinbase, Terra’s Do Kwon, Tron’s Justin Sun, and several more. The aggregate worth of these prominent digital assets, considered securities, currently amounts to billion, making up over 8% of the cryptocurrency market.
Alleged Crypto Securities Identified by SEC Account for 8% of Crypto Economy
The SEC has classified a significant number of crypto assets as securities within its purview; these include decentraland (MANA), dash (DASH), algorand (ALGO), beaxy token (BXY), solana (SOL), binance coin (BNB), cardano (ADA), and several others. Combined, these purported security designations represent a total value of billion as of Wednesday. Moreover, within the past 24 hours, these coins registered approximately .47 billion in global trading volume.
The top five crypto assets deemed securities, in the SEC’s view, by market valuation include binance coin, cardano, solana, tron, and polygon. These account for .93 billion of the overall billion figure or 74.41%. Following polygon in terms of the highest valuations among supposed crypto securities are ton coin, binance usd, cosmos, filecoin, internet computer, near protocol, algorand, and sandbox.
These eight tokens represent .54 billion in value or 18.91% of the cumulative billion. This implies that the leading 13 alleged crypto securities constitute 93.32% of the market value of the 66 classified.
Some tokens cited in this list like Mirror Protocol’s synthetic stock tokens possess no tangible worth but were still regarded as securities by the SEC along with luna classic (LUNC) and terrausd classic (USTC). Out of all tokens responsible for 93% of the purported crypto securities lists’ value, only two experienced losses within the past seven days. BNB dropped 2.37% this past week, while internet computer declined by 2.02%.
Though the SEC has deemed these crypto assets as securities, this doesn’t mean they actually are. Recently, Ripple Labs secured a partial victory concerning its crypto asset’s programmatic sales. Binance, Coinbase, Bittrex, and others have also been fighting the SEC in court; the outcomes of these cases may provide additional clarity.
While the crypto assets classified as securities by the regulator initially witnessed significant downturns following the SEC’s disclosure, most of these assets have reversed course and recorded gains since the recent XRP ruling.
What impact do you think the SEC’s classification of these crypto assets as securities will have on the future of the cryptocurrency market?
Bitcoin, the “Biggest Unicorn of the 2010s”: Market Cap Higher Than Uber & Airbnb Combined
If you’ve perused Bitcoin and Silicon Valley Twitter at all over the past few years, you’ve likely heard the word “unicorn” thrown about. Heck, if you’ve read Bloomberg or watched any number of CNBC’s segments over the past decade, you’ve heard the word.
Related Reading: Under 6.8m Bitcoin Changed Hands in the Past Year: Does it Indicate Positive Sentiment?
No, it’s not a reference to the mythical creature with one long horn, but is rather a word used to describe the fleeting number of startups that have surmounted a billion U.S. valuation.
If you were to search up the term in the context of Silicon Valley and global technology, you’d likely come up with the usual suspects: Uber, Airbnb, Robinhood, and the works. Though, maybe the top unicorn is Bitcoin.
That’s what a prominent cryptocurrency entrepreneur and Silicon Valley mainstay recently proposed anyway.
Bitcoin, the Biggest Unicorn, Possibly Ever
Balaji Srinivasan, the co-founder of Earn, Teleport, CoinCenter, and other startups and the former CTO of Coinbase, recently wrote that he thinks Bitcoin was the biggest unicorn was Bitcoin, not Snapchat, or Uber, or Airbnb, etc.
As the decade ends, the biggest unicorn of the 2010s wasn’t Uber, Airbnb, or Snap. It was Bitcoin.
— Balaji S. Srinivasan (@balajis) December 4, 2019
Srinivasan isn’t kidding when he says that Bitcoin is literally the biggest (and arguably best) unicorn of the 2010s. Uber has a market capitalization of billion, Google says, and Airbnb has a pre-public valuation market capitalization of closer to billion, making them both smaller than Bitcoin’s 0 billion market cap, even in aggregate.
Also, BTC has performed extremely well — astronomically well, actually — since its launch. Per previous reports from NewsBTC, Saifedean Ammous, an economics professor and the author of industry primer “The Bitcoin Standard,” recently noted that on October 11th, 2009, someone purchased 5,050 Bitcoin for .02 in the “first market transaction for BTC”. Today, that same sum of coins is worth some million.
As the professor noted, this implies that from its first sale, Bitcoin has rallied some 838,078,685% until now.
Related Reading: Bitcoin, the Best Performing Asset Ever, is “Still Very Cheap”: Prominent Investor
Strong Fundamentals
The network’s fundamentals metrics are impressive as well. For instance, the blockchain continues to process more value each and every year than PayPal, the eBay-affiliated payments processing and fintech giant that is currently valued at 3 billion. Also, the cryptocurrency hasn’t been compromised, in that Bitcoin’s underlying characteristics of offering fast, global, censorship-resistant, relatively cheap, non-sovereign, and unintermediated transactions have remained intact for the asset’s entire history.
Many believe that the cryptocurrency’s fundamentals will be strong heading into the future. Blockchain Capital’s Spencer Bogart, for instance, recently noted that Bitcoin and cryptocurrency on-ramps like Coinbase and Kraken have seen growth over the past year, which should translate to a positive long-term trend for the industry.
Related Reading: Strong NYSE Composite, Dow Jones May Give Bitcoin a Boost Into 2020
Featured Image from Shutterstock
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US-Based Traders Dominate Crypto Trading, More Than Next 5 Countries Combined
The United States has long been one of the world’s most important economies, having a massive influence on the overall global economy and often helps to shape economic policy all over the world. It’s no surprise that the the country dominates the Bitcoin and overall crypto market similar to how it does other financial markets.
A new report on the global distribution of crypto traders based on exchange traffic shows that not only the United States as the dominant country in all of crypto trading, it has more crypto traders than the next five ranked countries behind it combined.
Bitcoin Traders Across the Globe: United States Leads the Crypto Charge
In a new published report by cryptocurrency and blockchain analytics firm Datalight, the company has revealed the results of a detailed analysis on the global distribution of Bitcoin and altcoin traders by country. The research looked at website traffic from “the 100 most popular crypto exchanges” to determine the rankings.
The report reveals, “as expected” the United States leads crypto trading “by a long distance.” Bitcoin and other altcoin traders in the country account for over 22 million visits per month.
Related Reading | Sell in May and Go Away? A Look At Historic Bitcoin Price Performance in May
Following behind the US is another one of the world’s most important economies, with Japan being home to over 6 million monthly crypto traders. Japan has also been home to a number of hacks over the course of the last couple years, and the abundance of crypto traders in the country may be part of the reason.
![](https://www.newsbtc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/i2oubyozm6v21-742x1100.png)
Image courtesy of Datalight
In third is Korea, home of Samsung and other tech-forward companies that have recently warmed up to the crypto space. Korea is also home to many cryptocurrency projects, such as ICON (ICX).
The UK follows in 4th place, with just under 4 million monthly crypto traders. Russian and Brazil ranked 5th and 6th respectively, with both garnering just 3.1 million monthly crypto traders each.
The United States and its 22.26 million monthly crypto traders amounts to more active traders each month than Japan, Korea, the UK, Russia, and Brazil combined, showing what a dominant economy the United States is.
Related Reading | Visualized: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and the Rest of Crypto Battle for the Top Ten
China is large missing from the list, despite being an economic superpower and having a massive population. China tightly controls the way its citizens interact with the internet, and hasn’t been welcoming to the new financial technology and asset class, which could be why the country is absent from the data.
The remainder of the top 20 countries by monthly crypto traders all have roughly 1-2 million monthly users.
The amount of crypto traders in the United States suggests that roughly 6.7% of the country’s population is actively trading cryptocurrencies, according to the data.
Featured image from Shutterstock
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Bitcoin Price Surged More In 1 Hour Than Last Two Months Combined
Bitcoin is no stranger to powerful price movements, at times growing or declining in value by 20% to 50% intraday. As the bear market raged on, however, there has been a distinct lack of large green candles representing substantial Bitcoin price increases.
But that all changed this week when Bitcoin rallied, pushing the price of the leading crypto by market cap through resistance at ,200 to over ,000, setting the first higher high since its parabolic advance was broken back in December 2017. The violent rally took Bitcoin price higher in value in just one hour, than the prior two months of uptrend combined.
Bitcoin’s April Rally Makes Fool of February and March Uptrend
Prior to the current uptrend that began in early February, Bitcoin had closed a record six consecutive monthly red candles in a row. When both February and March closed in green, bulls rejoiced. However, the most recent Bitcoin rally easily bested both months in terms of value risen in just a one-hour candle, than the prior two entire months combined.
Related Reading | Crypto Community Speculates On What Triggered Massive Bitcoin Price Rally
The uptrend began on February 7, when the leading cryptocurrency by market cap had neared support at the 200-week moving average, causing a strong bounce that many traders had been expecting. What they didn’t expect, is for the uptrend to continue over the next two months, taking Bitcoin out of the current trading range and above ,000 for the first time in 2019.
During February, the price rose from a low of ,350 to a February monthly candle close at around ,800. In March, the price rose from the February close, slowly, until it touched the previous high at around ,150 at the close of March. The entire move from early February through the end of March, brought the price of Bitcoin up by 0 in total.
— lowstrife (@lowstrife) April 3, 2019
Yesterday’s rally candle, however, rose from ,150, before topping out around ,100, representing an approximately 0 gain in the opening days of April. The total rise in the one hour window grew 0 more than the previous two months combined, or a total of 59 days.
Related Reading | From Banks To Funds To Brokers, Everyone Outside of Crypto Is Talking Bitcoin Today
April has historically had some of the largest green candles across the cryptocurrency’s price charts, with last April playing host to the massive “short squeeze” that took the price of Bitcoin from ,700 to over ,000 in a single move. That rally, was swatted down by bears back to lows, however, this current rally comes as the 2018-2019 bear market winds down, and sellers begin to lose momentum.
Should Bitcoin continue to climb from here, the crypto community will become increasingly confident that the bottom is in, and the next bull run is near.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
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Researcher: Bitcoin Lightning On Square Could Be Bigger Than Crypto ETF, Bakkt Combined
Although many industry insiders talk a big game about the real world viability of Bitcoin, as it stands the cryptocurrency has seen little adoption. In fact, it has been anecdotally said that the number of brick and mortar merchants accepting BTC has plummeted, not risen over the past years.
Yet, this could change soon, as one of the most popular mobile applications in the U.S. was revealed to be slated to double-down on its in-house Bitcoin offering. Some have even argued that the integration could single-handedly propel this industry to new heights.
Related Reading: Analysts Applaud Square’s Bitcoin Strategy as Brilliant Despite Low Profitability
Twitter CEO Continues Bitcoin Crusade
In the past two weeks, Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of both Twitter and Square, has risen to monumental status in the cryptosphere. While he made brief comments about his enamorment with Bitcoin in early-2018, he went full evangelist in early-February, as he extensively touted the merits of an Internet-centric decentralized currency. On Joe Rogan’s Youtube podcast, the Silicon Valley guru claimed that the battle-tested Bitcoin could easily become the native currency of the entire Internet ecosystem.
Bitcoin is resilient. Bitcoin is principled. Bitcoin is native to internet ideals. And it’s a great brand.
— jack (@jack) February 5, 2019
He expressed a similar sentiment on Twitter. In fact, Dorsey made over 100 tweets regarding cryptocurrencies in a rant-esque fashion. Per previous reports from this outlet, the Bay Area native mentioned that Bitcoin is resilient, principled, native to the ideals of the Internet, and a great brand, in spite of cynics’ cries.
While this was jaw-dropping in and of itself, Dorsey made mention of his advocacy for the Lightning Network. In response to a tweet that outlined an idealistic system where people can tip satoshis for tweets (enabled via Lightning), the American entrepreneur noted that he “loves the idea.”
This one-liner, while innocuous in practically any other context, quickly catalyzed rumors that Dorsey’s Square, a fintech company with a higher valuation that Twitter, was hard at work on incorporating Lightning into its services.
Cool example of #BitcoinTwitter experimenting on the Lightning Network.
Torch received, now passing along to @starkness! #LNtrustchain https://t.co/YVMAv62fCN
— jack (@jack) February 5, 2019
Just days later, he took to Bitcoin bull Stephan Livera’s podcast to confirm these rumors. During the podcast, which also saw Lightning Labs chief executive Elizabeth Stark make an appearance, the Twitter CEO explained that Square’s integration of the scaling protocol is a matter of “when,” not “if.” Speaking on the rationale of eventually making such a move, Dorsey explained that his firm’s raison d’etre is to serve customers best, with Lightning only accentuating this goal.
He added that Square sees Bitcoin’s underlying nature as a currency, rather than solely a speculative asset. And as it stands, the widespread adoption of the Lightning Network is the most promising means to get to that end.
How Big Would Bitcoin Lightning On Square Be?
While Dorsey’s comments regarding his fintech upstart’s plans to integrate the Lightning scaling solution were open-ended, the magnitude of the future move was quickly comprehended.
Alec Ziupsyns, better known as RhythmTrader on Twitter, claimed that whatever form the integration takes, it will likely have a larger impact on the Bitcoin ecosystem than both Bakkt and a crypto ETF. This comment may have caught investors off-guard, especially considering the ever-growing thought process that a fully-launched Bakkt will be the startup to wrench Bitcoin out of this 12-month “crypto nuclear winter.”
Jack Dorsey says Lightning Network coming to Square's Cash App is a "when", not "if".
This will have a larger impact on bitcoin adoption than both Bakkt and an ETF.
The launch of the Bitcoin Network in 2009 was a global earthquake.
Now is time for the tsunami.
— Alec Ziupsnys (@AlecZiupsnys) February 11, 2019
Ziupsnys, who likened the initial launch of the Bitcoin Network to a global earthquake, added that the next phase of the asset’s life, which will involve Square’s Bitcoin offering, will be much like the subsequent tsunami.
Other industry insiders echoed Ziupsyns’ quip. In an interview with Tim Copeland of Decrypt Media, Jeremy Welch, the chief executive of Bitcoin hardware and software provider Casa, noted that Square’s (and Twitter by extension) support for Lightning would simply be “huge.” Welch explained that as Square is a “very well respected company,” with “great tech, great teams,” it’s doubling down on Bitcoin would be significant for both adoption and reputation. The entrepreneur explained:
“Silicon Valley hasn’t had the best view on Bitcoin overall. So, it would be significant on multiple levels, both in terms of adoption and their reputation and they have cachet with a lot of the bigger financial institutions.”
Featured Image from Shutterstock
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Binance Updates Stablecoin Listings to Create Combined Market
In an effort to create a combined stablecoin market crypto exchange Binance has updated its USDT markets.
The world’s top exchange by trade volume, Binance, has been tweaking its stablecoin markets recently. According to an announcement yesterday it has renamed all USDT markets to USDⓈ.It went on to state;
“Binance has renamed the USDT Market (USDT) to now be a combined Stablecoin Market (USDⓈ). This is to support more trading pairs with different stablecoins offered as a base pair. We will make a further announcement soon on the exact pairs to be initially moved or added to this market.” Before clarifying that “USDⓈ is not a new stablecoin: it is the symbol of Binance’s new stablecoin market.”
The announcement comes a couple of weeks after Binance said it would be listing the Coinbase and Circle dollar pegged coin, USDC. It also lists Paxos and TrueUSD, making the total up to four dollar pegged stablecoins. In reality though the exchange would prefer that people use its own native coin, BNB, to trade with.
Tether Untethered
Stablecoins have become a bit of a point of contention recently. The battle for supremacy and to become the stable standard has heated up while Tether’s woes continue to deepen. USDT has been far from ‘stable’, during the recent crypto crash which started less than two weeks ago. Tether’s price has fluctuated between .02 and .95 and is currently still trading below a dollar at .98. USDT has actually yielded a 7% difference between its highs and lows making it the least stable of the stablecoins over the past fortnight.
USD Coin has ranged from .06 to .98 and is actually up trending at the moment, holding above a dollar since mid-November. The Paxos Standard Token has spiked between .02 and .97 and is currently trading at .01, and TrueUSD has been very similar.
By combining stablecoins Binance appears to be trying to iron out these differences to create the most stable market for USD pegged crytpocurrencies. There is no actual coin though that combines all of them, just a section on Binance which lists them all together to provide a better glance at stablecoin performance. This will give a trader more oversight on which ones to select and it is likely that Tether will come out the loser, especially if it remains below a dollar for much longer.
Image from Shutterstock
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