2024-06-07 06:40

The long-short ratio is starting to tilt in favor of bulls since Wednesday, data indicates, as some traders expect bitcoin to set fresh all-time highs in the coming weeks. Bitcoin traders have set a new record for BTC futures positions, with open interest surpassing $37.7 billion. The surge in open interest coincides with record inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs and a bullish long-short ratio, indicating positive market sentiment and expectations for bitcoin to reach new all-time highs in the coming weeks. Bitcoin (BTC) traders have now placed the highest-ever positions on BTC-tracked futures in the asset’s history as open interest crept over $37.7 billion late on Thursday, setting a new record. This eclipsed a previous peak of just under $37 billion in mid-March when bitcoin recorded fresh highs of $73,700. The jump came as spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) set an inflow record over 18 days, The Block reported. BlackRock’s IBIT took on $340 million in net inflows on Thursday, preliminary data tracked by SoSovalue shows, while Ark Invest’s ARKB saw net outflows of nearly $97 million. Over $5 billion in open interest has been added since Monday, Coinglass data shows, while BTC prices have risen from the $68,500 level to $71,000 in the period. Of the $37.7 billion, traditional finance powerhouse Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) holds the highest bets at $11 billion, followed by crypto exchange Binance at $8 billion. The significant long-short ratio shows a bias toward bullish sentiment. Data shows the ratio rose over 1 early Friday from Thursday’s 0.94 level. A ratio above 1 means that there are more long positions than short positions, suggesting positive market sentiment for an asset. On the other hand, a ratio below 1 suggests that short positions outnumber long positions, indicating negative expectations. As such, several traders expect bitcoin to rise further in the coming weeks, citing growing risk appetite and favorable regulatory expectations. “Bitcoin can overcome the resistance level in the zone of 71k-73k and renew all-time highs in the following weeks, driven by optimism in financial markets,” crypto exchange YouHodler’s chief of markets Ruslan Lienka told CoinDesk in a Friday email. “Such positive sentiment is caused by expectations of coming interest rate cuts in the US and Europe that stimulate capital inflow into risk assets.” “Elevated trading activity with meme stocks such as GameStop and other penny stocks with low ratings shows a growing risk appetite,’ Lienka added. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/06/07/bitcoin-bets-hit-peak-of-37b-as-etf-inflows-set-new-record/

2024-06-06 21:55

Shares of GameStop closed the Thursday session 47% higher as the retail trading icon provided an update of his position and announced a livestream for Friday. It's 2021 all over again as shares of video retailer GameStop (GME) soared Thursday after influential retail trader Keith Gill, better known under his RoaringKitty or DeepF--kingValue aliases, provided an update on his massive bet on the embattled stock. According to a screenshot posted on Reddit, Gill's stock and options position is now worth some $586 million combined. He announced a YouTube livestream for Friday. GameStop shares closed Thursday's session 47% higher. The action rippled through the digital asset market, too. Solana-based meme token GME, which was inspired by GameStop but has no affiliation with the company, surged more than 80% over the past 24 hours, CoinGecko data shows, despite the broader crypto market pulling back. The micro-cap AMC token, which shares the name of the troubled movie theater chain but similarly has no affiliation, also jumped 83%. Gill, who rose to fame during the GameStop short squeeze in the pandemic years, sparked a frenzy for memecoins last month when he returned to social media after three years of silence. Since then, the GME token is up over 3,000% since mid-May and surpassed a $120 million market capitalization. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/06/06/gamestop-inspired-solana-memecoin-soars-over-80-as-roaring-kitty-flashes-586m-worth-of-gme-position/

2024-06-06 19:54

The stocks are undervalued, so miners with attractive power contracts could become M&A targets, according to Wall Street analysts. Bitcoin mining stocks outperformed other cryptocurrency-linked stocks Thursday after multiple industry takeover offers drew market attention to the question of who could be the next target. Shares of miners such as Stronghold (SDIG), Core Scientific and TeraWulf (WULF) surged more than 15%. Gains in Iris Energy (IREN), Mawson (MIGI), Cathedra (CBIT) and Argo Blockchain exceeded 10%. Most recently, one of the largest miners, Riot Platforms (RIOT), started a hostile takeover attempt of peer Bitfarms (BITF), while artificial intelligence firm CoreWeave proposed buying another mega-cap miner, CoreScientific (CORZ). Although Bitfarms and CoreScientific both rejected the offers, the takeover attempts have reminded investors that the industry may be primed for mergers. B. Riley analyst Lucas Pipes said that power contracts and lower valuations could be the catalyst that starts the consolidation phase for miners. "We believe that the bullish outlook on the power market could catalyze increased M&A activity this year, especially as wide discrepancies in valuation remain," he wrote in a report. JPMorgan analysts agreed with Pipes' sentiment, noting that AI and cloud computing firms seeking to diversify their power sources could come after bitcoin miners. The bank also said that as some miners are looking to exit this market following the Bitcoin halving – an event that cut mining rewards, pressuring weaker firms – M&A activity is likely to accelerate. Both Wall Street firms said larger miners such as Riot and Marathon Digital (MARA) are likely in the best position to lead this consolidation wave. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/06/06/bitcoin-mining-stocks-soar-amid-takeover-frenzy/

2024-06-06 17:47

The raunchy rapper's token has spawned fortunes and furor over celebrity cryptocurrencies. Rapper Iggy Azalea's MOTHER token hit another all-time high on Thursday, extending the gains for Solana's latest hot meme coin and inviting criticism of the highly risky, sometimes infamous subsector of celebrity cryptocurrencies. Just over a week after launch, the MOTHER token has reached a market cap of $200 million, minting millionaires among some iron-handed gamblers who saw 90% price gains in the last 24 hours alone. Azalea has transformed her powerful X (formerly Twitter) account into a platform for promoting the token to her 8 million followers. Those eye-watering totals vaulted MOTHER into the upper echelons of Solana's fast-growing meme coin sector. These days anyone can, in minutes, create a token lampooning anything. Here, the someone is Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, and the something is, well, a photo of her backside. MOTHER is the second-largest asset by market capitalization to emerge from meme coin factory Pump.Fun, the outpost partially responsible for flooding Solana with half a million new tokens in May alone, per The Block. Gamblers who bought MOTHER on Pump.Fun and held are sitting on a massive windfall. The top wallet had around $3,200 of the token on May 28; on Thursday morning its position was worth nearly $9 million. Like many meme coins, MOTHER claims no value proposition whatsoever. Holders don't get payouts from album sales, as some royalty-infused NFTs do. They also lack the voting rights that some fan tokens issued by football teams carry. MOTHER's value is purely a function of demand for a coin that some speculators are betting might climb higher still. Vitalik not impressed All that froth has renewed scrutiny of so-called celebrity tokens. On Wednesday, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin blasted celebrity tokens that tout "financialization as a means to an end" and lack some greater purpose. Hours later, Azalea subtweeted him with a photoshopped image depicting herself breastfeeding an infant Buterin. "He was just hangry," she wrote, using slang for hunger-induced crankiness. That cheeky aside brought more criticism from crypto's philosophical corner. Hayden Adams, creator of the decentralized trading protocol Uniswap who pioneered the token-swapping tech behind on-chain trading of meme coins and basically everything else, chastised Azalea for lampooning "the best builder in the entire space" while failing to harness her crypto foray for some higher purpose. What began as a million-dollar joke has since spiraled into a debate about the point of crypto itself. Early on Thursday, market-making kingpin Wintermute's Evgeny Gaevoy belittled Adams' and Buterin's efforts to "solve capitalism." "Idk guys I’m with Iggy on this one🙃," he posted on X. Risk factors Still, MOTHER has a long way to go before graduating into the meme coin big leagues. Blockgraze, a pseudonymous crypto trader who turned $1,500 into millions of dollars by betting early on Dogwifhat (WIF), said celebrity coins such as MOTHER face more "failure vectors" than regular joke tokens. "In addition to all the ways a regular meme coin can fail you have all the added mistakes and risks from tying yourself to her personally. She can get bored, tweet the wrong thing, face personal legal action/whatever else," Blockgraze said. Azalea's ascension as chief bull poster is helping prop up MOTHER's price in ways few other celebrity tokens have been able to attain. Her X posts circulate raunchy memes every hour dunking on the haters and fueling more attention – and hype – for MOTHER. She's also changed her profile photo to a Mad Lads NFT, the most valuable collectible on Solana. "The Iggy coin itself is only really interesting because she seems to be trying to stick with it and so far the price reflects people appreciating that," Blockgraze said. (Celebrity) skin in the game? Celebrities have a mostly infamous history with promoting cryptos. There's Larry David's flashy FTX super bowl ad, which spawned lawsuits from customers of the failed, fraudulent exchange. Ex-boxer Floyd Mayweather landed himself in hot water twice over scammy promotions. And Kim Kardashian faced SEC penalties for boosting a token. MOTHER differs from those in many respects, not least its closeness to the source. While it's unclear if Azalea herself created the token on Pump.Fun, it's technically plausible that she did. Regardless, she's been promoting the asset since its earliest moments. The token's so-called "dev wallet" (Pump.Fun labels token creator wallets as "devs" despite needing no technical skill to make a token) held nearly $5 million of MOTHER Thursday. Azalea wasn't immediately available for an interview Thursday. In a post on X in late May she outlined some of her reasoning: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/06/06/iggy-azaleas-mother-meme-coin-turned-3k-into-9m-for-one-lucky-crypto-trader/

2024-06-06 15:35

The asset manager’s name was removed from a recent document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in preparation for the launch and later confirmed that it dropped out of the race. Cathie Wood's Ark has been a vocal proponent of cryptocurrencies for years and is among firms that already offer a spot bitcoin ETF. It joined with other firms applying to offer ether ETFs in the U.S. But then, within the past week, it bowed out without explaining why. Chalk it up to the intense battle to lure customers with low fees for crypto ETFs, according to experts. During a fireside chat at CoinDesk's Consensus conference in Austin, Texas, last week, Wood said ARK's spot bitcoin ETF, launched earlier this year, wasn’t making the firm any money because it charges investors such a low fee: 0.21%. While that's comparable to what other bitcoin ETF issuers charge, it's significantly lower than what non-crypto ETFs typically charge. “Perhaps this is a simple business decision,” said Nate Geraci, president of the ETF Store. “If Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) can eclipse $3.5 billion in less than five months and Ark can’t make any money, that’s obviously an issue.” ETF issuers charge investors a fee to compensate for managing the fund. Many investors seek to minimize that fee since it cuts into returns. In the race to launch a spot bitcoin ETF, Grayscale set its fee significantly higher than its competitors, at 1.5%, which appears to be one of the main reasons why investors have pulled billions of dollars out of the fund and the fund lost its early lead, in terms of assets, to BlackRock. “I don’t think anyone truly expected the fee war to get that aggressive before we even saw launches,” said James Seyffart, ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Seyffart also believes that Ark made the decision based on the low fees. “It’s possible that the partnership made a ton of sense, particularly with the demand for bitcoin ETFs,” he said. “But after the fees got so low right off the bat, there might simply not have been enough money from fees to go around for both firms, particularly on an Ethereum ETF if they are expecting less demand versus bitcoin ETFs.” Only one wannabe issuer, Franklin Templeton, has revealed the fee for its fund so far, which it set at 0.19% according to a filing, the same amount it charges for the Franklin Bitcoin ETF. Despite the low fee structure of the ETFs, Ark’s departure from the race came as a shock, given the asset manager’s strong footing in the industry and its offering of multiple other ether-related funds. “This is a surprising move from my perspective,” said Geraci. “From a longer-term branding perspective, I’m surprised Ark wouldn’t find value in being involved in the spot ether ETF category. Ark has been much more forward-thinking around crypto than many of their competitors, so it’s odd to see them sit this one out.” A representative for Ark Invest could not be reached for comment. CORRECTION (June 6, 2024, 15:48 UTC): Corrects to remove reference to Ark being the first to apply for an ether ETF. https://www.coindesk.com/news-analysis/2024/06/06/cathie-woods-ether-etf-pullback-is-likely-due-to-fee-war/

2024-06-06 14:55

The private fund would offer exposure to a range of cryptocurrencies and potentially provide staking rewards, The Information reported. The fund would target institutional investors, according to the report. The asset manager already has a spot bitcoin ETF and has applied for a similar ether offering. Franklin Templeton, the $1.6 trillion U.S. Silicon Valley asset manager, is considering a new crypto-focused investment fund, The Information reported Thursday citing people with direct knowledge of the effort. The investment vehicle would be structured as a private fund targeting institutional investors and invest in cryptocurrencies beyond bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH). The asset manager is also thinking about passing staking rewards on to the fund's investors, according to the report. Franklin Templeton is one of several traditional finance heavyweights venturing into the digital asset industry to offer crypto and tokenized asset investments to clients. It started a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the U.S. earlier this year and applied to list a similar offering for the second-largest crypto asset, ether. It also opened a tokenized U.S. government bond fund using the Stellar (XLM) network in 2021, years before BlackRock did. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/06/06/franklin-templeton-weighs-new-crypto-fund-investing-in-tokens-beyond-bitcoin-ether-report/