2024-05-29 12:00
The latest price moves in crypto markets in context for May 29, 2024. Latest Prices Top Stories Crypto markets were muted during the European morning, with bitcoin appearing to consolidate around $68,000 following its rally to $70,000 at the start of the week. BTC is priced at just over $67,800 at the time of writing, around 1% less than 24 hours ago. The broader digital asset market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), has dropped about 0.65% during that time. ETH meanwhile is trading just above $3,800, down a little over 2% in the last 24 hours as the market awaits further news on the listing of spot ether ETFs in the U.S. following last week's SEC approval of some filings by prospective providers. BlackRock's spot bitcoin ETF has leapfrogged Grayscale's to become the largest of its kind after a $102 million inflow on Tuesday. BlackRock's IBIT holds nearly $20 billion worth of bitcoin, compared with GBTC's $19.7 billion. GBTC saw $105 million in outflows on Tuesday. Buying activity for IBIT ramped up recently amid bullish sentiment for bitcoin and the broader crypto market. The bulls gained momentum after the ether ETF filings approvals and renewed support for crypto among U.S. political parties. That helped mark a sudden shift in IBIT, which recorded low or even zero inflows before May 15 and saw its first-ever day of outflows in April, leading to bearish sentiment. Riot Platforms has the capacity to consolidate the bitcoin mining sector, broker Bernstein said in a report. Riot is trying to acquire rival miner Bitfarms, after buying a 9.25% stake in the company. “The bitcoin mining business is becoming tougher for smaller players, with limited capital to ramp up on the global hash power race,” Bernstein analysts Gautam Chhugani and Mahika Sapra wrote. Bernstein says it expects the U.S. bitcoin mining industry to consolidate to about five large players who will control substantial capacity. There are more than 20 publicly listed miners at present. The largest bitcoin miners should ramp up their M&A plans to maintain “long-term strategic relevance,” Bernstein noted. Chart of the Day The top 10 cryptocurrencies by open interest now include four meme coins, of which DOGE leads the charge with $1 billion in futures bets. Rising interest is considered to be a sign of future price volatility, which traders can use to position their bets. The recent rise in open interest for meme coins comes from their bullish momentum over the past couple of weeks as PEPE hit a new all-time high. However, data shows that funding rates for meme coins remained negative across crypto exchanges, indicating a bearish sentiment regarding the cost of holding positions. Source: CoinGlass - Shauyra Malwa Trending Posts Consensus 2024: A Guide to Everything You Don't Want to Miss Ripple Donates Another $25M to Crypto Super PAC Fairshake Binance Executive Jailed in Nigeria Is Suspected of Having Malaria, Family Says https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/05/29/first-mover-americas-btc-consolidates-around-68k-as-ibit-overtakes-gbtc/
2024-05-29 10:49
The company has the financial capacity to consolidate the bitcoin mining space, the report said. Riot has the financial capacity to consolidate the bitcoin mining space, the report said. The broker said it expects the U.S. bitcoin mining space to consolidate to around five large players. Bernstein said the larger miners should ramp up their M&A game to maintain strategic relevance. Riot Platforms (RIOT) is the most ambitious bitcoin (BTC) miner to attempt to consolidate the sector, and the company has a desire to build the world’s largest publicly listed mining company, broker Bernstein said in a research report on Tuesday. The Colorado-based company has the financial capacity to consolidate the mining space as it has no debt and more than $1.3 billion of cash and bitcoin on its balance sheet, the report said. Riot is trying to acquire rival bitcoin miner Bitfarms (BITF), after buying a 9.25% stake in the company. The miner has offered to buy all the outstanding shares in BITF for $2.30, the company said on Tuesday. “The bitcoin mining business is becoming tougher for smaller players, with limited capital to ramp up on the global hash power race,” analysts Gautam Chhugani and Mahika Sapra wrote. Bernstein says it expects the bitcoin mining sector in the U.S. to consolidate to about five large players who will control substantial capacity. It noted that there are more than 20 publicly listed miners at present. “If power becomes the biggest constraint to scale up artificial intelligence (AI) computation, we see bitcoin miners as a strategic asset controlling power, land and with significant operating capabilities in running data centers,” the authors wrote. The broker notes that smaller miners are seeing competitive interest from AI data centers that are looking to buy sites. The largest bitcoin miners should ramp up their M&A plans to maintain “long-term strategic relevance,” the report noted. Bernstein has an outperform rating on Riot shares and a $22 price target. At the time of writing, the shares were trading around $10.30. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/05/29/riot-platforms-is-best-suited-to-consolidate-bitcoin-mining-sector-bernstein/
2024-05-29 10:34
A rally in meme tokens such as dogecoin and shiba inu is primarily driven by Asian traders in response to bullish sentiment around ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), one trader said. Bitcoin and ether prices fell slightly while meme tokens saw significant gains. The surge in meme coins such as shiba inu, was probably driven by Asia-based traders and linked to the excitement around the potential for a pro-crypto shift by U.S. regulators. Bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) prices fell a little more than 1% in the past 24 hours as crypto markets remained mostly muted after last week's rally. With major tokens such as Solana's SOL, XRP and BNB Chain's BNB little changed, the meme coin sector drove the biggest gains for traders among categories tracked by CoinGecko, including shiba inu (SHIB) climbing as much as 12%. The broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), an index of the largest tokens that omits stablecoins, lost 0.5%. A surge in dogecoin (DOGE) and SHIB started during European afternoon hours Tuesday as stocks of videogame retailer GameStop (GME) rose up 19% in premarket trading, a signal that has historically led to gains in meme tokens. "Popular memes are running primarily due to Asian traders entering the market again - most tend to see their prices rise most significantly during Asian trading hours, during the middle of the night US time," Rennick Palley, founding partner at crypto fund Stratos, said in an emailed statement. "This is a follow-on effect to excitement around the ETH ETF and US regulatory shift to becoming more pro-crypto," Palley added. As previously reported, meme tokens such as pepe (PEPE) and mog (MOG) have rocketed as much as 100% in the past week as a beta bet on the Ethereum ecosystem. This is on the back of U.S. listing approvals for a spot ether exchange-traded fund (ETF). Bitcoin, meantime, remains in a bearish trading range despite recent volatility, according to FxPro senior market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich. "A clear exit and daily close above $70,000 will break this bearish pattern. Until then, the classic development is a pullback to the lower range at around $68,000," he said in a Telegram interview. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/05/29/bitcoin-ether-prices-ease-as-shib-drives-gains-in-meme-tokens/
2024-05-29 09:00
Ripple’s new contribution to Fairshake is on top of another $25 million donation to the pro-crypto PAC in 2023. Ripple has added another $25 million to the coffers of Fairshake, a federal crypto super political action committee (PAC) that’s spending big this election year to support crypto-friendly Congressional candidates. Ripple also made a $25 million donation to Fairshake in 2023, bringing its total contribution to the political action committee (PAC) to a whopping $50 million. Ripple’s donations account for roughly half of the more than $100 million Fairshake has raised from major players in the crypto space, including crypto exchanges Coinbase and Gemini, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and asset manager ARK Invest. Many in the crypto industry see the 2024 elections as a critical opportunity to elect pro-crypto candidates – and oust less-than-friendly candidates, such as Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-Calif.), an ally of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), whose bid for Senate was squashed with the help of a $10 million campaign from Fairshake. In a Wednesday announcement, Ripple attributed its contribution to Fairshake as “part of an industry-wide effort to advance policies that support the next generation of financial innovation in the U.S.” The announcement specifically discussed the role of federal regulators, saying that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) approach of “trying to regulate crypto by enforcement has failed” and that the U.S. must act now to craft a “positive regulatory landscape” for crypto that will foster innovation. "Our contributions to Fairshake are just one of the many ways Ripple will actively invest in educating voters on the role crypto will play in the future and the dangers of the anti-crypto stance some policymakers are clinging to in Washington," said Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse in a press statement. "Ripple will not – and the crypto industry should not – keep quiet while unelected regulators actively seek to impede innovation and economic growth that millions of Americans utilize. The crypto industry intends to remain heavily invested in this effort until we see meaningful change." In 2020, the SEC accused Ripple of violating federal securities laws, kicking off a bitter years-long court fight that remains ongoing. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/05/29/ripple-donates-another-25m-to-crypto-super-pac-fairshake/
2024-05-29 07:13
Inflows to IBIT have picked up recently after a dismal few weeks at the end of April. BlackRock now holds the ETF in one of its major funds. BlackRock’s IBIT has surpassed Grayscale’s GBTC, becoming the largest spot bitcoin ETF in the U.S. The investment giant added IBIT to its income and bond-focused funds on Tuesday. BlackRock’s spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) is now the largest product of its kind, flipping Grayscale's GBTC after a $102 million inflow on Tuesday. IBIT holds nearly $20 billion worth of bitcoin as of Wednesday morning, its product page shows. GBTC holds $19.7 billion after seeing $105 million in outflows on Tuesday, its page shows. Since going live in January, investors have poured in $16.5 billion to IBIT and have withdrawn $17 billion from the Grayscale fund. On Tuesday, BlackRock added the bitcoin ETF to its income and bond-focused funds in the first quarter. The firm’s Strategic Income Opportunities Fund (BSIIX) holds over $3.5 million worth of IBIT, while its Strategic Global Bond Fund (MAWIX) holds $485,000. Buying activity for IBIT ramped up recently amid bullish sentiment for bitcoin and the broader crypto market. The bulls gained momentum after the listing approval for ether (ETH) ETFs and renewed support for crypto among U.S. political parties. That helped mark a sudden shift in IBIT, which recorded low or even zero inflows before May 15 and saw its first-ever day of outflows in April, leading to bearish sentiment. Last week, U.S.-listed spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds reached a new record by holdings with more than 850,000 BTC in custody, surpassing the previous high of 845,000 BTC from early April. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/05/29/blackrock-takes-the-crown-for-the-largest-spot-bitcoin-etf-from-grayscale/
2024-05-28 20:33
It was about one year ago when regulators first approved a leveraged bitcoin ETF. The Volatility Shares 2x Ether ETF (ETHU) will become the first leveraged ether (ETH) ETF available in the United States, with the company posting on its website that trading will begin on June 4.. The launch will come roughly one year after the Volatility Shares 2x Bitcoin fund opened for business in June 2023. The spot bitcoin ETFs finally won SEC approval and began trading about seven months after that. Speaking with CoinDesk, Volatility Shares Chief Investment Officer Stuart Barton said his company's success in winning approval for the leveraged ether ETF may help pave the way for ultimate approval for the spot ether ETFs. The SEC last week approved key regulatory filings tied to the spot funds but did not yet green light their launch. "While several details of the spot ETFs are no doubt being presently worked out with the SEC, the launch of a 2x Ether ETF would certainly indicate the SEC growing appetite for further crypto lined ETFs," Barton said. Read More: Ether ETFs Clear Major Hurdle, Though SEC Hasn't Cleared Them for Trading Yet https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/05/28/leveraged-ether-etf-to-start-trading-june-4-sponsor-volatility-shares-says/
