2024-06-10 08:21

Markets will increasingly price in at least one Fed interest-rate cut for 2024, QCP Capital said. BTC, ETH's post-payrolls report price drop is a good opportunity to buy the dip, QCP said. The Fed will find it difficult to ignore G7 interest-rate cuts, the trading firm added. Bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) have lost steam since Friday's hotter-than-expected U.S. jobs data damped hopes for a Federal Reserve interest-rate cut in September. The post-report price swoon in the two largest cryptocurrencies offers a good opportunity to pick up bargains, according to QCP Capital, a Singapore-based trading firm. Friday's non-farm payrolls data showed the U.S. economy added 272,000 jobs in May, way more than the 185,000 estimated and well ahead of April's downwardly revised 165,000. While the jobless rate ticked higher to 4%, average hourly earnings, the sticky inflation component, rose 0.4% month-on-month, above the expectation of a 0.3% rise. Markets immediately trimmed the probability of a 25 basis-point Fed rate cut in September to 60% from 85%, sending risk assets, including cryptocurrencies, lower. JPMorgan and Citi scrapped forecasts for a Fed rate cut in July, while some observers put rate increases or additional liquidity tightening back on the agenda. Bitcoin, which looked primed for a breakout above $72,000, fell almost 3% to $68,400, according to CoinDesk data. Ether and the CoinDesk 20 index followed bitcoin's lead. QCP Capital said the Fed will have trouble keeping rates elevated while other central banks reduce borrowing costs. "Strong upside surprised on NFP (272K vs 182k), higher payrolls came with higher unemployment (3.9% to 4.0%). It was confusing enough to trigger a risk-off ahead of U.S. inflation numbers and FOMC," the firm said in a market update. "We agree that this is a good opportunity to buy the dip as the markets will increasingly price in at least one Fed rate cut from here. It will be difficult for the U.S. to ignore as the rest of the world continues to cut rates," QCP Capital said. The European Central Bank and the Bank of Canada cut rates last week, leading the Group of Seven (G7) to start a so-called easing cycle. According to MacroMicro, the number of central banks whose most recent moves have been rate cuts has increased this year. Other central banks, including the Fed, may soon join the fray in tit-for-tat rate reductions (often called currency wars) as a part of a strategy to manage their burgeoning public debts, inadvertently boosting demand for alternative investments like cryptocurrencies. "Our desk saw bullish flows on this dip, both sellers of aggressive puts and buyers of call spreads, especially in BTC," QCP said. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/06/10/payrolls-led-bitcoin-ether-price-swoon-is-buy-the-dip-opportunity-crypto-trading-firm-says/

2024-06-10 08:12

The week ahead could boost market volatility with the CPI release on Wednesday, the FOMC meeting on Thursday, and a speech from Janet Yellen on Friday, one firm said. Analysts expect increased market volatility in the upcoming week due to key macroeconomic events such as the CPI release and a speech by Janet Yellen. The crypto market experienced a downturn following the release of stonger-than-expected U.S. jobs data, with meme stocks like GameStop also seeing declines, impacting riskier assets like alternative tokens and meme coins. Bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) were little changed over the weekend as open interest and trading volumes slumped after a $400 million leverage flush out on Friday, dampening market momentum. However, analysts at Presto Research said in a market brief to CoinDesk that they expect market volatility to return in the week ahead with macroeconomic catalysts such as the CPI release on Wednesday, the FOMC meeting on Thursday, and Janet Yellen's speech on Friday. Record leverage build-up on bitcoin futures cost bulls as the market plunged on Friday following the release of non-farm payrolls (NFP) figures. The NFP number came in stronger than expected, with the US economy adding 275,000 jobs compared to the expected 185,000. BTC saw a sharp decline following the release, falling from $71,000 to $69,000. Elsewhere, a slide in meme stock GameStop (GME) appeared to weigh in on riskier assets such as alternative tokens and meme coins, with major memes dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB) losing as much as 10%. Since Friday, open interest, or the number of unsettled futures contracts across various tokens, slid from $99 billion to $60 billion, indicating traders significantly pared bets. Volumes fell 10% in the past 24 hours, Coinglass data shows. BTC traded just over $69,400 in early European hours on Monday, while ETH traded around $3,660. Solana (SOL) and xrp (XRP) showed slight losses. BNB Chain’s BNB tokens lost 5.5% as traders likely took profits following a rise to a lifetime peak of over $710 last week. Cardano’s (ADA) was slightly up on Monday following confirmation of a technical event that could affect the fundamentals of the network and its token. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/06/10/bitcoin-ether-little-changed-over-weekend-after-400m-liquidation-rout/

2024-06-10 07:46

Monthly plans on the purported mobile service provider cost from $20 to $80 as of Monday. Iggy Azalea's MOTHER token holders may soon use the cryptocurrency to purchase phones and monthly cell plans from the singer's telecommunications company. The move follows the launch of a MOTHER merchandise store and is part of a broader effort to increase the cryptocurrency's utility amid a volatile, but overall positive, performance since its introduction last month. Holders of singer Iggy Azalea’s mother (MOTHER) tokens may soon be able to use the the viral cryptocurrency to pay for phones and services from the Australian rapper's planned telecommunications company, adding utility to a token issued less than a month ago. The development comes on the back of a MOTHER merchandise store announced last week, which contributed to a rally in the token at the time. MOTHER has advanced 18% in the past 24 hours, outpacing gains in the meme coin sector, DEXTools data shows. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), a measure of the broader crypto market, has dropped 0.3%. “Tomorrow I’m finally relaunching the telecommunication company I co-founded and you will be able to purchase phones, or month to month cell plans using $MOTHER or Sol,” Azalea wrote on X. “Ad campaign n rollout to follow late this week.” In a follow-up tweet, she said Unreal Mobile is a service provider for the phones and that there would be “a selection of phones for purchase if needed.” The payment infrastructure will be handled by Sphere Labs, which did not offer a native token as of Monday. Unreal’s plans range from $20 to $80 a month based on data usage and network spectrums, the site shows. Phones sold by the Solana blockchain proved to be a success, partley because they came with an allocation of BONK tokens. All units of the flagship Saga model sold out in 2023 as sentiment around Solana-based meme tokens grew, eclipsing a dismal launch in 2022. The sales even prompted the announcement and early development of a second Saga phone, which crossed 100,000 in presale orders in February 2024. The controversial MOTHER, issued as a celebrity meme coin in late May on Solana, saw volatile trading in its first few days as uncertainty around its actual issuer mounted among crypto circles. The issuance sparked debate among crypto believers, with some voicing concerns that it was a possible cash grab by a celebrity and others saying it showed what broader adoption of tokens could really look like. As such, Azalea’s continual backing of promises of long-term growth seems to have paid off for early believers as the token’s market valuation grew from under $10 million to over $200 million. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/06/10/iggy-azalea-says-mother-tokens-can-soon-be-used-to-buy-phones/

2024-06-07 19:30

The COPA vs Craig Wright trial made a resurgence on Friday to determine what costs and penalties Wright might suffer. The Crypto Open Patent Alliance is demanding that Craig Wright pay 85% of its legal costs. COPA took Wright to court in February to find out if he was Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin. The presiding judge of the case, James Mellor, ruled that Wright was not Nakamoto in March. The Crypto Open Patent Alliance's (COPA) legal representatives on Friday asked Judge James Mellor to grant that Craig Wright pay 85% of the costs the group incurred in the legal proceedings. COPA took Wright to a U.K. court in February to find out, once and for all, if he was the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, after Wright had taken members of the crypto community to court over the years under the premise that he was Nakamoto. The English court ruled in COPA's favor in March that Wright was not the creator of bitcoin and that he did not author the bitcoin whitepaper. Jonathan Hough, one of COPA's legal representatives, asked that Wright be given a civil restraint order to stop him from pursuing any other legal court cases, because "he has poured out threats." COPA also offered to submit a list of online posts that Wright should take down. Hough said that this case should also be put forward for criminal proceedings following the courts judgement that Wright committed multiple forgeries during the trial. The Bitcoin developers who joined this case also asked that Wright pay for 85.2% of their costs. Unless Wright was prevented from doing so, he would continue to "propagate lies," Hough argued. “There is a powerful public interest in them [lies] being brought to an end now,” Hough said, pointing to the litigation that spanned more than five years that Wright had brought against COPA members such as Coinbase Inc. (COIN) and Kraken, among others. Hitting back Wright's defense argued that not clarifying the perimeters in which Wright can say he is Nakamoto could infringe on his human rights. “What if Dr. Wright sent an email to a medical professional asserting he was Satoshi – that’s a publication of a statement,” Craig Orr, Wright's lawyer said, adding that the suggestion that Wright take down all his posts was "parasitic." His defense also asked that the amount Wright pays be brought down to 70% of the costs COPA incurred. The room was filled with people from the legal world that sought to see the end of this trial. They were able to hear Hough playing back Wright's own words in an Oxford Union video from 2019. “Yes, there is altered pages,” Wright said in the video that bellowed across the court room. “So, I’m going to court on this; I don’t need to face trolls in rooms. You know what happens when you lie in the court; you know what happens – for court perjury – you get 20 years. That’s how real things work in the real world outside of the crypto Twitter-storm world. In the real world, people have evidence and rules." The judge was inundated by lawyers jumping in to defend clients like Coinbase, who offered new thoughts and didn't agree fully with some of the cost figures that were presented. Mellor, whose expression shifted from certain to ever-more-pensive as the trial went on, decided at the end of it he could not give a judgement at that moment, but he said he'll give a decision on costs first before making a decision on what kind of injunctive relief the court would seek. Injunctive relief is a measure from the court that would seek to prevent defendants from doing something. The court didn't immediately provide information to CoinDesk seeking more information in the exact timing of the judgement. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/06/07/copa-seeks-payment-of-85-of-costs-in-craig-wright-case/

2024-06-07 19:26

NYAG has accused Gemini, Genesis, and DCG of conspiring to cover a $1 billion hole in Genesis’ balance sheet caused by the implosion of Three Arrows Capital. New York Attorney General Letitia James is not backing down from her lawsuit against Digital Currency Group, its founder and CEO Barry Silbert, and Soichiro “Michael” Moro, the former CEO of DCG’s wholly-owned crypto trading arm, Genesis. On Tuesday, James’ office filed a motion in opposition to DCG’s, Silbert’s and Moro’s motions to dismiss the case filed in March. Along with crypto exchange Gemini, James’ office has accused Genesis, DCG, Silbert and Moro of defrauding investors by working together to cover up a gaping $1 billion hole in Genesis’ balance sheet caused by the wipe-out of Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). At the time of its implosion, 3AC was Genesis’ second-largest borrower. According to James’ October suit, Genesis and DCG made “false assurances” on Twitter that DCG had absorbed Genesis’ losses, designed to put investors at ease and prevent them from calling in their open loans. But instead of actually covering Genesis’ losses, DCG allegedly just wrote its subsidiary firm a promissory note – essentially an IOU meant to create the appearance of liquidity – pledging to pay Genesis $1.1 billion over ten years at 1% interest. DCG, James’ suit alleges, “never made a single payment under the Note.” In November 2022, Genesis halted withdrawals and declared bankruptcy two months later. DCG and Silbert have denied that the promissory note was a sham. In their motions to dismiss, lawyers for DCG and Silbert claimed that the note was fully vetted and binding, adding that, in addition to the note, DCG transferred hundreds of millions of dollars and assets into Genesis to fill the hole in its balance sheet. The tweets reassuring investors of Genesis’ “strong” balance sheet, they argued, were simply “corporate puffery” – not lies. James’ latest motion argues that the tweets weren’t simple puffery: they were “misrepresentation of existing facts” made to “mislead the investing public” – a violation of New York’s strict anti-fraud law, the Martin Act. Midnight strategy meeting In a transcript of a late-night June 15, 2022 Microsoft Teams chat attached to James’ motion, Silbert, Moro and various high-level Genesis executives strategized about how to respond to investors in the wake of 3AC’s collapse. “I know I sound like a conspiracy theorist but I’m very concerned about any leakage of our overall net position,” then-Managing Director Matthew Ballensweig, wrote in the 16-person chat. “I agree with the caution,” Moro responded. Later that night, after some members of the team had a call to discuss the 3AC situation, another employee, Genesis’ managing head of trading Michael Paleokrassas, wrote to say: “Not sure anyone is awake, but starting to see a steady flow of calls starting.” The next morning, another employee said, “We’ve been defen[d]ing the castle all night and day on [the] phone with depositors, prospects, etc.” Silbert chimed in, saying: “Is there anything we/DCG can do to further install confidence in genesis…the word on the street is that genesis is the 'blue chip' in this mess. We need to continue to perpetuate that of course.” James’ suit alleges that these conversations were part of a “concerted misinformation campaign to conceal Genesis’ financial weakness to induce investors to continue supplying cryptocurrency to Genesis” A representative for DCG declined to comment on the NYAG's latest motion, stating the company's stance on the matter "remains unchanged" from the position illustrated in DCG and Silbert's motions to dismiss, and calling the suit "meritless." “Circle of Trust” The newly-released Microsoft Teams chats expand on previous examples of Silbert, Moro and other employees strategizing internally to prevent word of Genesis’ problems from leaking to investors, while publicly tweeting that everything was fine, James' lawsuit alleged. In Silbert’s own motion to dismiss, his lawyers attached emails and instant messaging threads showing his response to the fallout from 3AC’s collapse. In one, Silbert said “we are all focused on making sure that the trust and confidence in Genesis remains high because we can’t risk money leaving Genesis and depleting [DCG’s] liquidity.” He added that “even though [DCG’s] liquidity is super super strong right now” the hole in Genesis’ balance sheet is “super confidential/sensitive stuff, so please don’t share with anybody” outside of “the circle of trust.” Three days after that, on June 24, 2022, Silbert told colleagues: “We just can’t allow people inside or outside [to] question Genesis’ solvency.” Martin Act Violations? James’ motion of opposition re-asserts her office’s claim that “each of the DCG defendants” – meaning DCG, Silbert and Moro – were well aware of the allegedly fraudulent practices being committed to make Genesis look solvent, a violation of New York’s strict anti-fraud law, the Martin Act. “The DCG Defendants were actively involved in Genesis’ day-to-day affairs…including attending daily meetings to discuss Genesis’ communications with its investors,” the motion alleges. The Martin Act broadly prohibits any fraudulent business activities relating to the purchase, exchange, promotion, advertisement or sale of any securities or commodities. The NYAG's office has pursued cases against a number of crypto companies and entities under this law, including its 2019 inquiry into Tether and Bitfinex. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/06/07/new-york-ag-pushes-back-against-dcg-silberts-motion-to-dismiss-fraud-case/

2024-06-07 18:55

Ideas about lower U.S. interest rates were foiled again and a plunge in shares of speculative favorite GameStop soured the mood in crypto. Challenging an all-time high earlier Friday, bitcoin has pulled back, giving up most of its weekly gains The selloff in the rest of the cryptocurrency market was far larger as speculative fever cooled The spot bitcoin ETFs are on their largest accumulation streak since launch, but it wasn't enough for a sustained rally in price. What was thought to be a challenge of all-time highs for bitcoin (BTC) has turned into a fast retreat in U.S. trading on Friday, with the world's largest crypto barely hanging onto a week-over-week gain. At press time, bitcoin was changing hands at $69,000, down 2.5% over the past 24 hours. That was far outperforming the broader CoinDesk 20 Index, which is lower by 5% over the same time frame. Among CoinDesk 20 constituents, ether (ETH) was off 4%, Tezos {{XTX}} and EOS {{EXOS}} 10% and Solana (SOL) 7%. According to data tracked by Coinglass, the selloff has led to $450 million in liquidations, the largest amount since a mid-April washout. Challenging $72,000 earlier on Friday, bitcoin began headed lower in the U.S. morning hours after the government's employment report for May came in far stronger than expected with 272,000 jobs added. That seemingly dashed hopes for an imminent interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve, sending interest rates and the dollar sharply higher. The selloff in bitcoin and crypto really picked up steam several hours later as Roaring Kitty held a hotly anticipated YouTube livesteam for the first time in several years. The trading legend perhaps disappointed those waiting for some sort of big announcement and instead said little of interest except for his hope that GameStop management will be able to transform the company into something of great value in coming years. Already lower on the day, GME shares fell further during the broadcast, now off 40% for the session. The GME meme coin is down 50% from highs reached earlier Friday. A check of other meme coins finds dogecoin (DOGE) lower by 8% over the past 24 hours, shiba inu (SHIB) down 10%, and pepecoin (PEPE) off 15%. In the meantime, bitcoin bulls might be left scratching their heads at what might be needed for a true upside breakout. The spot ETFs on Thursday completed an 18th-consecutive day of inflows, a steak not even accomplished during the frenzied price increases of February and March. Over that 18-day streak, the ETFs accumulated more than 56K bitcoins, according to HODL Capital, or nearly 7x the amount of bitcoin mined during that period. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/06/07/big-friday-crypto-selloff-pulls-bitcoin-below-70k/