The latest price moves in crypto markets in context for July 20, 2023.
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Bitcoin spot ETFs could increase BTC demand to the tune of $30 billion, according to a report by NYDIG. The crypto trading firm estimates that there are $27.6 billion in spot-like products, compared with $210 billion invested in funds for gold, to which bitcoin is often compared. “Bitcoin is about 3.6x more volatile than gold, meaning that on a volatility equivalent basis, investors would require 3.6x less bitcoin than gold on a dollar basis to get as much risk exposure. Still, that would result in nearly $30B of incremental demand for a bitcoin ETF,” NYDIG writes. The possibility of a spot bitcoin ETF in the U.S. looks far more likely since BlackRock submitted an application to list one with a “surveillance-sharing” agreement, which the SEC sees as necessary to prevent market manipulation.
El Salvador’s junk-rated bonds due 2027 have seen a substantial upward trend in the last six months amid bitcoin’s rally, defying some analysts’ expectations. The Central American country, which made BTC legal tender in 2021, had its debt rating downgraded by Fitch last September with a prediction of a debt default in January. In fact, the junk-rated bonds are up 62% since the start of 2023 and are trading at 72 cents on the dollar. Bitcoin rose 79% in the same period. El Salvador’s bonds have, however, even outperformed the Invesco Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF (PCY), one of the largest holders of the country’s debt, according to Factset.
Kuwait’s financial regulator has banned crypto payments, investment and mining as a means to combat money laundering. The prohibitions are aimed at coming into compliance with the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) global recommendations for crypto assets, according to the regulator. “Securities regulated by the Central Bank of Kuwait and other securities and financial instruments regulated by the Capital Markets Authority are excluded from this prohibition,” the regulator said in a circular. FATF compliance does require guardrails against money laundering, but the international watchdog says it has not asked any countries to ban crypto, it told CoinDesk in May.
The protocol was built on the architecture of LayerZero, which raised $120 million at a $3 billion valuation earlier this year.
The venture capital arm of Binance has invested $10 million in Radiant Capital, a decentralized finance (DeFi) lending and borrowing protocol.
The new funds will go toward tech and product development, which includes expanding collateral and deployment on the Ethereum mainnet
Radiant is built on architecture from LayerZero Labs, another Binance Labs portfolio company. The lending platform aims to take on DeFi’s fragmented liquidity problem by serving as a money market where users can deposit and borrow assets across multiple chains.
Traders, known as Dynamic Liquidity Providers, can lock in the native RDNT token to profit from interest and flash loan fees and have governance authority within the Radiant DAO. The protocol’s platform fees are paid out in bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), BNB Coin (BNB) and stablecoins.
Radiant, which currently has about $265 million in total value locked, according to DeFi Llama data. The platform supports more than 20 collateral options and plans to add new options in the future as the Radiant DAO expands the functionality to additional chains.
“Radiant Capital’s commitment to facilitating seamless cross-chain transactions for DeFi, and performance on Arbitrum and BNB Chain demonstrates its potential for driving mass adoption,” said Yi He, co-founder of Binance and head of Binance Labs, in the press release.
Radiant was built on the interoperability and cross-chain messaging infrastructure of LayerZero, which raised $120 million in April at a $3 billion valuation.
Tokens of Radiant Capital RDNT jumped over 10% to 31 cents after the news of Binance’s investment.
UPDATE (July 20, 13:03 UTC): Adds RDNT token move in last para. Updates headline.
Some argue it would weaken crypto’s payments use case or form a bridge to a digital dollar.
The U.S. Federal Reserve’s controversial instant payments service, FedNow, went live Thursday with 35 banks and credit unions participating, the central bank announced.
Early adopters include JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, with 16 other institutions supporting processing of payments that the Fed argues will offer just-in-time access to paychecks and invoices.
“The Federal Reserve built the FedNow Service to help make everyday payments over the coming years faster and more convenient,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in a statement.
Officials including Powell have previously said the real-time payment network is needed to avoid having to depend on private sector alternatives, like the now abandoned stablecoin Diem (previously named Libra) by Marc Zuckerberg’s Meta (previously Facebook) while some have seen it as a step towards a central bank digital currency.
FTX users have until Sept. 29 to file their bankruptcy claims.
Several users of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX are being targeted by a potential phishing attack after being sent a “reset password” request from the exchange’s official customer support email.
The email, which has been reviewed and verified by CoinDesk, was sent by support@ftx.com – the official email address before the exchange collapsed in November.
The password reset link routes to the FTX claims portal that allows users to submit bankruptcy claims for assets they held on the platform before its demise.
Mossab Hussein, co-founder of cybersecurity firm Spidersilk, said the surprising emails can be attributed to one of two options: “It’s either FTX itself sending those emails [to notify them of the claims portal] and giving people a scare. Or, someone has “a list” of emails and is bruteforce resetting their credentials via the portal.”
If a hacker gained access to user’s personal email addresses, they could feasibly gain access to a claimant’s account and divert funds to their personal wallet.
FTX spokespersons didn’t respond to request for comment immediately.
On Monday, many FTX users received an email from Kroll, the restructuring administrators of FTX, explaining that the deadline for claims is set for September 29, 2023.
FTX owes roughly $8.1 billion to customers after it imploded in a pool of leverage and illiquid tokens last November in an event that ravaged the wider crypto market.
The Financial Conduct Authority will consult on rules once the government gives it the necessary powers, the regulator said in its annual report.
The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is designing prudential requirements for firms carrying out crypto activities.
The regulator, which is in charge of maintaining a registry of crypto firms approved for operations under the country’s anti-money laundering requirements, will also consult on prudential rules for companies engaged in crypto activities once the “Treasury and Parliament bring those activities under our regulation,” the regulator said in its annual report published Thursday.
The FCA did not immediately respond to a CoinDesk request for comment on the timeline for receiving regulatory powers.
The regulator already has a prudential regime for investment firms like fund managers, asset managers and trading firms that are based in the U.K. The regime requires firms to assess capital adequacy and risk to identify potential harm to investors and provide appropriate resources to mitigate harm.
Last year, the FCA put out a notice for firms with exposure to crypto companies, urging them to “have appropriate systems and controls to counter the risk of being misused for financial crime,” and review if the firms they work with are registered crypto companies.
The FCA, which was approved for a host of new powers under a recently passed financial markets bill, stands to be the U.K.’s key crypto watchdog as the country explores its ambition to be a global hub for the sector.
CoinDesk has reached out to the FCA for further comment.
The embattled Harbour Trade credit pool minted $1.5 million of DAI stablecoin secured with loans to a consumer electronics firm, which defaulted on $2.1 million of debt.
DAI stablecoin issuer MakerDAO’s community has decided to halt lending to a tokenized credit pool on the Centrifuge protocol after accruing $2.1 million of loan defaults.
In a governance vote that concluded Thursday at 12 p.m. (ET), voters unanimously favored stopping additional lending to the embattled credit pool, managed by fintech firm Harbor Trade. Maker is led by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), where those who hold MKR tokens can participate in governance decisions.
“While Harbor Trade has verbally committed to cease additional draws and voluntarily wind down the vault, community members have expressed concern about the existing 7 million Debt Ceiling and the risk of potentially increasing exposure to this vault,” a MakerDAO governance post said.
Maker’s $4.5 billion stablecoin DAI is backed by debt positions overcollateralized by cryptocurrencies, and increasingly, tokenized versions of loans and bonds, to earn a yield.
The Harbor Trade credit pool minted some $1.5 million of DAI stablecoins from MakerDAO and secured them with loans made to a consumer electronics firm. The borrower firm failed to pay down $2.1 million of debt matured in April.
Harbor Trade is “actively engaged in the workout process” and forecasts “a meaningful or full recovery,” according to MakerDAO, but the procedure could take six months or more.
Bitcoin investors have been unmoved by recent macroeconomic data. Muted reactions suggest that they’ve already priced in much of what has occurred
Initial jobless claims in the United States for the week ending July 15, declined to 228,000, 9,000 lower than the prior week, and below expectations for 242,000. The second, consecutive weekly decline reflects a persistently strong labor market and
It also marks the mild reaction to significant macroeconomic events over the past 10 days.
BTC prices moved less than 2% after last week’s Consumer Price Index, Non-Farm Payrolls and Quarterly GDP growth.
The knee-jerk narrative for cryptocurrencies for today’s release is that tight labor markets prolong any chance that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will halt interest rate increases. This would likely limit crypto prices.
The real-time crypto market reaction suggests that crypto investors have already included this into their investment calculus. So while a lid appears to be on bitcoin prices, its appears to be a light one, applying minimal downward pressure
BTC prices fell 0.22% during the 8 AM ET hour, following the data release. Ether by comparison sank 0.25%. Both declines occurred on lower than average volume, illustrating the muted impact of what has become a recurring theme for U.S. labor markets.
The 4-week average of jobless claims declined for the third consecutive week. If the FOMC is looking for weaker job growth before pivoting to a lower interest rate environment, this news would not support such a move.
Further exacerbating tight labor markets is higher median earnings for wage and salaried workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, second quarter median earnings for full- time wage and salary workers was 5.7% higher than a year prior, compared to a current 4% increase in Consumer Prices.
While inflation has been steadily declining, labor markets and overall earnings’ strength would likely cause prices to rise, were the FOMC to forego a rate hike. Market expectations for a 25 basis point (bps) increase on July 26 are now 99.8%, up from 98% a day prior.
Crypto investors seem unfazed with bitcoin levels almost identical to where they stood 30 days ago. The same holds true for Ether, as both assets have been trading near their respective 20-day moving averages.
Momentum for both is neutral as well. Their respective Relative Strength Index (RSI) figures sit near 50, signaling neither bullish nor bearish sentiment.
Tech stocks such as Tesla and Netflix, which crypto prices tend to correlate with, sold off during the day as investors shied away from risk assets.
Cryptocurrencies slid lower Thursday with bitcoin (BTC) revisiting the bottom threshold of its month-long trading range, while Chainlink’s LINK rallied solo among the largest crypto assets.
BTC’s price dipped to as low as $29,593 during the afternoon hours, near its lowest point in a month. The largest cryptocurrency by market value has been see-sawing in a tight channel since June 21, bouncing from the $29,500 level multiple times to trade as high as $31,809.
Ether (ETH) buckled below $1,900 to change hands 1% lower than 24 hours ago.
Ripple’s XRP pared some of its impressive gains from previous days, dropping some 6% in the last 24 hours. The token’s price almost doubled to 93 cents a week ago, following a partial court victory against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). After the decline, it was still trading at around 79 cents.
LINK, the native token of the Chainlink ecosystem, defied the market slump and was the only crypto asset with sizable gains among the 40 largest tokens by market capitalization.
The token surged 15% through the day above $8 for the first time in nearly three months as some large investors – whales in crypto jargon – acquired $6 million of tokens. The price action came after Chainlink released this week an interoperability protocol that facilitates communication between blockchains and banks, tested by interbank communication system Swift.
The CoinDesk Market Index, which tracks the performance of a basket of digital assets, gained early in the day then retreated and was down 1.26% over the last 24 hours.
Crypto investors might have been concerned by a sell-off in tech stocks. The NASDAQ 100 index (NDQ) declined 2% during the day, as investors dumped shares of tech giants Tesla (TSLA) and Netflix (NFLX) after their underwhelming quarterly earnings reports, dropping some 9%.
Cryptocurrency prices have a history of correlating with risk assets such as the tech-heavy NDQ, although the relationship has wobbled this year.
“Seems like we are just having a risk-off day in general after a massive run for weeks, with investors taking profits and rebalancing,” Brett Sifling, director at investment firm Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management, told CoinDesk in a call.
The exchange is requiring Coinbase Borrow customers with outstanding loan balances to pay them back by November 20.
Coinbase Borrow, a program that allowed customers to receive fiat loans of up to $1 million against as much as 30% of their bitcoin (BTC) holdings, will be shutting down over the coming months as the company focuses its resources on products that “customers care about most,” a spokesperson told CoinDesk Thursday.
Customers who hold loans through the program will have until November 20, 2023 to pay back any outstanding loan balances.
“We have notified impacted loan holders and are taking extra measures to ensure a smooth transition for them, including providing a four-month loan repayment period and access to prioritized customer support through Coinbase One,” according to a statement sent to CoinDesk. Coinbase One is a monthly subscription product with multiple benefits for traders.
Coinbase announced in May that it was no longer allowing Coinbase Borrow customers to take out new loans as part of a regular process of re-evaluating its products.
The California-based exchange has been under increased scrutiny by U.S. regulators, specifically the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for its operations in the U.S., and has been doubling down on its businesses elsewhere.
A spokesperson told CoinDesk back in May that the shutdown of Coinbase Borrow was simply due to reduced demand.
The bill aims to set out clear rules for the digital assets ecosystem.
U.S. House Republicans introduced a new digital assets oversight bill on Thursday that aims to establish a regulatory framework to protect investors in the crypto sector.
“Today’s introduction of the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act marks a significant milestone in the House Committees on Agriculture and Financial Services efforts to establish a much-needed regulatory framework that protects consumers and investors and fosters American leadership in the digital asset space,” said Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pa.) in a statement.
The bill, first drafted in early June, aims to lay down a regulatory path for crypto exchanges to register with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and would enable them to trade digital securities, commodities and stablecoins all in one place.
“The crypto industry wants clarity and our collaborative bill gives both the CFTC and SEC a seat at the table. Our bill establishes clear principles to ensure financial security and certainty as digital asset developers continue to innovate,” said Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) in the statement.
