2024-02-29 05:46

The attractive yield on the market-neutral cash and carry trade could draw more money to the crypto market. Bitcoin rose 9.5% Wednesday, extending the two-day winning streak. Analysts foresee a continued move higher into six figures in the coming months. The market-neutral bitcoin cash and carry offers 14% annualized return, according to Glassnode. Bitcoin (BTC) surged 9.5% on Wednesday, registering its biggest single-day percentage gain since Oct. 23, according to charting platform TradingView. Prices rose to $64,000 on several exchanges, reaching the highest since November 2021. The parabolic move from Monday’s low of near $51,500 has been widely attributed to Wall Street’s embrace of the spot-based bitcoin ETFs. The CoinDesk 20 Index, the broader market gauge, has risen over 10% this week. The consensus is that the rally will continue in the coming months, taking prices into six figures. “Our analysis forecasts a conservative price objective of $100,000-$120,000 to be achieved by Q4 2024, and the cycle peak to be achieved sometime in 2025 in terms of total crypto market capitalization,” analysts at crypto exchange Bitfinex said. “The ETFs have introduced ‘passive demand’ which means demand is coming from investors that is largely price agnostic. They perceive bitcoin as a store of value rather than a tradable volatile asset, which has been the case for several years before the introduction of the ETFs,” analysts added. Early this week, technical analysis pundit Peter Brandt said bitcoin could peak at $200,000 by September 2025. These forecasts are sure to cheer directional traders. That said, non-directional traders need not feel left out, as the cash and carry arbitrage now yields three times more than the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note, the so-called risk-free rate. Cash and carry arbitrage is a market-neutral strategy that seeks to profit from price discrepancies in spot and futures markets. The arbitrageur combines a long position in the spot market with a short position in futures when futures trade at a premium to spot prices. As futures expiry nears, the premium evaporates, and on the day of the settlement, futures converge with spot prices, generating a relatively risk-less return to the arbitrageur. Per blockchain analytics firm Glassnode, the bitcoin cash and carry strategy, involving three-month futures, yields over 14%. That’s more than three times the 10-year Treasury yield of 4.27% and 2.8 times the 1-year Treasury yield of 5%. The relatively higher yield could attract more money to the crypto market. “The yield available in futures markets is likely to start attracting market makers back into the digital asset space, deepening market liquidity,” Glassnode said in the weekly newsletter. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/02/29/bitcoin-logs-biggest-single-day-gain-since-october-market-neutral-bets-yield-3x-us-treasury-notes/

2024-02-28 22:06

The company sold 56% of its mined bitcoin during the fourth quarter to fund operating costs. Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital (MARA) beat Wall Street's fourth-quarter sales expectations, mainly due to a higher bitcoin (BTC) price during the period. The miner reported fourth-quarter sales of $156.8 million, beating the average analyst estimate of $148.8 million, according to FactSet data. The company said the quarter's net loss would've been $0.02 per share, excluding the effect of the new accounting rules. Analysts estimated earnings per share of $0.04. Marathon said it sold 56% of the bitcoin it produced during the quarter to fund operating costs. The company also reiterated its outlook to bring mining power to about 35 to 37 exahash per second (EH/s) in 2024 and 50 EH/s by the end of 2025. "With orders for 22 exahash of miners already placed and options to add an additional 23 exahash to these orders, we believe there may be opportunities to accelerate our growth targets," the company said in the statement. Separately, Marathon announced Wednesday that it will start a new Bitcoin layer-2 network called Anduro. The new network will allow for the creation of multiple sidechains to foster innovation within the Bitcoin ecosystem, the company said in the statement. The miner is already developing the first two sidechains, one that will serve the Ordinals community – essentially, NFTs on Bitcoin – while the other will be an Ethereum-compatible chain for asset tokenization. The move comes after Marathon recently rolled out a new business that is also aimed at helping the Bitcoin ecosystem. It started "Slipstream," which will make the confirmation of large or "non-standard" bitcoin transactions easier, cutting out the delay and complications users often face. The shares of the miner fell more than 7% in the post-market trading, after outperforming its peers on Wednesday during the normal trading session. Bitcoin's price whipsawed today, erasing some of the earlier gains, still 6% higher, at around $60,530. The broader CoinDesk 20 Index added 3.6%, by comparison. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/02/28/bitcoin-miner-marathon-beats-sales-estimates-on-surging-btc-price/

2024-02-28 21:38

The pact is tied to the bankruptcy of Genesis Global Capital, Gemini's partner for its Earn program. Gemini Earn customers will receive 100% of their assets – possibly more than $1.1 billion – when Genesis Global Capital, Gemini's former partner on Earn, wraps up its bankruptcy case. Genesis filed for bankruptcy in January 2023. Gemini Earn customers will receive 100% of their locked-up holdings – potentially north of $1.1 billion – from the now-defunct program after a settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services, NYDFS announced Wednesday afternoon. As part of the settlement, Gemini will give Genesis – which provided services that helped Earn function – $40 million for its bankruptcy proceedings, which are ongoing, and pay $37 million to NYDFS. And, according to a press release, Gemini "has committed" to having $1.1 billion for its Earn customers by the time Genesis wraps up its bankruptcy proceedings. In a tweet, Gemini said this would amount to 100% of customers' assets, received in-kind, assuming a bankruptcy court signs off on the agreement. "Gemini commits to working through the bankruptcy process to ensure that Earn Customers make a full recovery of their virtual currency," NYDFS said. Earn was a product that let Gemini customers earn interest on cryptocurrency investments. Genesis supplied backend services for the program. The regulator alleged that Gemini did not conduct due diligence on Genesis Global Capital, which was unregulated and later sued by the New York Attorney General's office for fraud (Genesis Global Trading, another wing of the Genesis entity, previously had a NYDFS BitLicense, but was not part of the Earn program). Genesis filed for bankruptcy in January 2023, naming Gemini as one of its 50 biggest creditors. Genesis had previously suspended customer withdrawals, which affected Gemini Earn customers. On Wednesday, NYDFS noted that Genesis defaulted on about $1 billion in loans from Earn customers, harming about 200,000 different customers. "In addition to Gemini's failures related to Earn, the Department's investigation revealed that Gemini engaged in unsafe and unsound practices that ultimately threatened the financial health of the company," the press release said. "Gemini Liquidity LLC, an unregulated affiliate, collected hundreds of millions of dollars in fees from Gemini customers that otherwise could have gone to Gemini, substantially weakening Gemini's financial condition." NYDFS reserved the right to sue Gemini if the company does not pay back the $1.1 billion "after the resolution of the [Genesis] bankruptcy." https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/02/28/winklevoss-twins-gemini-promises-to-return-11b-to-earn-customers/

2024-02-28 20:48

Net inflows into U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs accelerated this week, with BlackRock's IBIT pulling in $520 million in fresh funds on Tuesday, BitMEX Research data shows. BlackRock's bitcoin ETF has traded $3.3 billion Wednesday, twice as much as its previous volume record. The new spot bitcoin ETFs combined with other new bitcoin ETFs also attracting heavy trading. "These numbers are absurd," ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted. The frenzy in ETF trading happened as bitcoin surged to $64,000 during the day and then quickly fell to $60,000. U.S. spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETF) experienced another massive trading session Wednesday as bitcoin's price surged to $64,000 and then quickly tumbled. BlackRock's bitcoin ETF (IBIT) broke its volume record for the third consecutive day, with over 96 million shares - worth roughly $3.3 billion - changing hands during the day, Nasdaq data shows. This is more than twice as much as Tuesday's all-time best of $1.35 billion, which toppled Monday's record of $1.3 billion. The ten spot BTC ETFs altogether booked $7.7 billion in trading volume, smashing the previous record of $4.7 billion from their first trading day on Jan. 11, according to data shared on X by James Seyffart, ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Grayscale's GBTC and Fidelity's FBTC both surpassed the $1 billion mark. Halfway into the trading session, IBIT was the fourth most traded ETF in the U.S., and three other new spot bitcoin ETFs were in the top 20, Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, noted earlier during the day. "This is officially a craze," Balchunas said in an X post. "These numbers are absurd." The frenzy in market activity happened as bitcoin blasted past $60,000 before U.S market hours for the first time since Nov. 2021, and ran up to as high as $64,000 before tumbling 7% below $60,000. The largest crypto by market capitalization gained 44% in a month. Market observers pointed to demand for spot bitcoin ETFs as a significant driving force behind the price surge. The ten newly listed spot ETFs attracted over $6.7 billion in net inflows since their debut in January, according to BitMEX Research. This week, allocations to the spot ETFs accelerated, surpassing $1 billion in two days, with BlackRock's IBIT alone pulling in $520 million of fresh funds on Tuesday, BitMEX Research data shows. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/02/28/blackrock-bitcoin-etf-breaks-volume-record-as-bitcoin-rallies-to-64k-before-plunging/

2024-02-28 20:31

Wallets containing bitcoin seized by the U.S. government in the notorious Bitfinex hack – later leading to guilty pleas for Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather "Razzlekhan" Morgan – have suddenly become active. Wallets containing bitcoin seized by the U.S. government in the notorious Bitfinex hack – later leading to guilty pleas for Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather "Razzlekhan" Morgan – have suddenly become active. Nearly $1 billion has been transferred from wallets tagged in the case to unidentified addresses, in a series of four transactions in less than two hours' time. The motive or purpose of the transactions isn't clear; the U.S. government didn't immediately reply to CoinDesk's request for comment. Two crypto wallets tagged as holding funds seized by the U.S. government related to the infamous Bitfinex hack have just transferred nearly $1 billion of bitcoin to unidentified addresses. A wallet that's one of at least three tagged by the blockchain-data firm Arkham Intelligence as holding seized Bitfinex hacker funds, on behalf of the government, initially transferred 1 BTC around 18:39 UTC (1:39 pm ET). Roughly a half-hour later, the remaining 2,817 BTC in the wallet were sent, leaving the wallet empty. Together they represented about $173 million worth of bitcoin. Shortly afterward, another wallet, containing about 12,300 BTC, transferred 0.01 BTC to a different unidentified address, according to Arkham, and shortly afterward the remaining BTC were sent. Those transfers represented about $750 million worth, bring the total value of the bitcoin transferred from the two wallets to about $923 million, based on the current price of the leading cryptocurrency. The motive for the transfers wasn't clear. The U.S. Justice Department didn't immediately respond to questions sent via a website for media requests. The bitcoin moved during a volatile day of trading in the cryptocurrency, with its price hitting $60,000 for the first time since November 2021, then climbing further above $64,000 beforea bruptly plunging to just above $59,000. As of press time it was changing hands just above $60,000. The all-time high price, set in late 2021, was around $69,000. According to Arkham, there is another U.S. government wallet containing about 94,600 BTC of seized Bitfinex hacker funds, worth roughly $5.79 billion at the current price. The Bitfinex hack was one of the crypto industry's most notorious heists, partly due to the colorful social-media posts of Heather "Razzlekhan" Morgan, who was charged in the case along with Ilya Lichtenstein. According to a Justice Department press release in August, the government seized about 95,000 stolen bitcoin from crypto wallets in the defendants' control, valued about $3.6 billion at the time of the seizure. https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/02/28/us-government-crypto-wallets-transfer-nearly-1b-of-bitcoin-seized-from-bitfinex-hacker/

2024-02-28 19:25

Since spot bitcoin ETFs went live in January, chatter has increased about the imminent arrival of the big registered investment advisor (RIA) networks and broker-dealer platforms. Morgan Stanley is deciding whether to offer spot bitcoin ETFs to customers of its large brokerage platform. The arrival of broker-dealers like Morgan Stanley as well as large registered investment advisor (RIA) networks could bring more investment into the new products. Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley is in the midst of performing due diligence to add spot bitcoin ETF products to its brokerage platform, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. One of the people said Morgan Stanley, which is among the largest U.S. broker-dealer platforms, has been evaluating offering spot bitcoin ETFs to clients since the Securities and Exchange Commission approved their introduction in the U.S. in January. Although billions of dollars have already been invested in these products, the investment floodgates might not open until the bitcoin ETFs are offered by big registered investment advisor (RIA) networks and broker-dealers platforms such as those attached to firms like Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and others. There are 10 spot bitcoin ETFs now trading in the U.S. The ones with the most assets are Grayscale's GBTC, BlackRock's IBIT and Fidelity's FBTC. It’s not clear which ones Morgan Stanley is looking to offer to its clients. Morgan Stanley declined to comment. Morgan Stanley, a leader in the alternative investments and private market space with over $150 billion in assets under management, was the first major U.S. bank to offer its wealthy clients access to bitcoin funds in 2021. The bank confirmed during its first-quarter earnings call in April 2021 that it was offering its wealth management clients exposure to bitcoin via a pair of external crypto funds. The wealth management firm’s former CFO, Jonathan Pruzan, said at the time that the bank was allowing qualified investors to gain access to two passive funds. It is understood that these funds were offered by Galaxy Digital and NYDIG. “As we see more interest, we’ll work with regulators to provide services we think are appropriate,” Pruzan said three years ago. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/02/28/morgan-stanley-evaluating-spot-bitcoin-etfs-for-its-giant-brokerage-platform-sources/