2024-02-28 18:08

The world's largest crypto soared to $64,000 Wednesday before quickly reversing to $59,000, CoinDesk data shows. Bitcoin's roller-coaster price action triggered nearly $700 million in crypto liquidation over the past 24 hours, CoinGlass data shows. The sell-off echoed throughout all digital assets, resulting in the CoinDesk20 Index falling almost 5% on Wednesday. Bitcoin's (BTC) breakneck rally quickly turned sour early Wednesday afternoon, with the price plunging 7% from a $64,000 high, turning into a bloodbath for leveraged traders. BTC rapidly surged earlier during the day, surpassing the $60,000 level for the first time since November 2021. After hitting a high of $64,037, it abruptly fell to $59,400, the CoinDesk Bitcoin Index (XBX) shows. Its price had bounced back over $61,000 before another wave of sell-off pushed it again to near the same level. At press time, BTC was changing hands at $61,122. The sell-off reverberated across the broader digital assets market, with the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) dropping almost 5% after hitting a fresh all-time high of 2,260 earlier on Wednesday. Major cryptocurrencies in the CD20, such as ether (ETH), Solana's SOL, XRP, Cardano's ADA, dogecoin (DOGE) and Avalanche's AVAX also dropped as much as 4%-9% in an hour. Crypto leverage wipe-out The sudden drop in prices caused a total of $700 million in liquidations for all digital assets over the past 24 hours, flushing out leveraged derivatives trading positions, CoinGlass data shows. Liquidations happen when an exchange closes a leveraged trading position due to a partial or total loss of the trader’s initial money down or "margin" – if the trader fails to meet the margin requirements or doesn't have enough funds to keep the trade open. Wednesday's action was likely the largest wipe-out since last August, when bitcoin's sudden drop to $25,000 liquidated $1 billion of derivatives positions across all crypto assets. The liquidations equally impacted long positions (bets on higher prices) and shorts (bets on prices to fall) as crypto prices rallied and then tumbled. Record-breaking spot bitcoin ETF volumes Wednesday's wild price action also brought record trading volumes for U.S.-listed spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF). BlackRock's IBIT saw $3.3 billion of shares traded, more than double Tuesday's record-breaking day. In comparison, the spot ETFs combined booked nearly $8 billion in trading volume, Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, noted in an X post. Meanwhile, amid the digital asset market's roller coaster, some Coinbase users were surprised to see zero balances in their exchange accounts. The company has since remedied the issue for some users. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/02/28/bitcoin-suddenly-plummets-7-after-hitting-64k-triggering-over-600m-crypto-liquidations/

2024-02-28 17:54

Multiple users of Coinbase's U.S. platform said on Wednesday that their account balances were wiped out. Coinbase users reported that their account balances showed $0 after bitcoin saw significant gains prior on Wednesday. The exchange said it was investigating the issue shortly after. At least some customers of Coinbase's U.S. cryptocurrency exchange are showing $0 account balances Wednesday as bitcoin (BTC) posted – and then quickly erased – a gigantic rally. The exchange said on its website that it was investigating the matter. "We are aware that some users may see a zero balance across their Coinbase accounts and may experience errors in buying or selling," Coinbase said. "Our team is investigating this issue and will provide an update shortly. Your assets are safe." Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong later said that the exchange had modeled a 10 times surge in traffic but that Wednesday’s demand exceeded that number. “It’s expensive to keep services over-provisioned, but we’ll need to keep working on auto-scaling solutions, and killing any remaining bottlenecks,” he wrote in a post on X. The outage happened hours after bitcoin topped $60,000 for the first time since November 2021 and went on to approach $64,000 before rapidly dropping back down to $60,000. Its all-time high above $69,000 is now in sight. Other crypto exchanges, such as Kraken, didn't report any technical problems. This isn't the first time Coinbase is experiencing an outage due to heavy trading. The exchange went down briefly in May 2020 after bitcoin tumbled 10% in the span of 30 minutes. Before that, in June 2019, the same problem occurred when the cryptocurrency dropped $1,800 in 15 minutes. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/02/28/coinbase-account-balances-shows-0-for-users-post-bitcoin-60k-breakout/

2024-02-28 17:54

The publicly traded U.S. crypto exchange said it would add support for the additional Ethereum "clients" – computer programs used to access and run the distributed network – to help reduce dependence on the dominant Geth software. Coinbase said its Ethereum staking program, which has previously relied only on the Geth execution client software, plans to eventually distribute its usage evenly between Geth and two additional options, Nethermind and Erigon. The move comes roughly a month after a bug on the Nethermind client knocked out 8% of Ethereum validators, highlighting the risks of an overreliance on Geth, and the lack of "client diversity." Coinbase, the publicly traded U.S. crypto exchange, said it's moving to help reduce risks on the Ethereum blockchain by adding support for two additional computer programs known as "clients" that users rely on to access and run the distributed network. In a blog post, Coinbase Cloud announced it's adding support for the Nethermind and Erigon execution clients, "which will diversify the execution layer within our Ethereum staking nodes." Ethereum is heavily reliant on users running the Geth execution client, currently representing about 74% of all clients. Nethermind accounts for 13% and Erigon 3%, with another option, Besu, providing 9%. Ironically, it was a bug on Nethermind last month that knocked out about 8% of Ethereum blockchain validators that shined a light on the network's lack of "client diversity." The fear is what might happen to the blockchain if there were ever a debilitating bug or other problem involving Geth. Coinbase tweeted at the time that "Execution client diversity on Ethereum is a critical concern for all of us at Coinbase," adding that the company was "performing our latest assessment of alternative execution clients and will have more to share on that process and our next steps by the end of February." On Wednesday, the company tweeted that "Over the next month, we plan to migrate roughly half our validators to Nethermind. Long term, we intend to evenly distribute between Geth, Nethermind, and Erigon." https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/02/28/coinbase-moves-to-improve-ethereums-client-diversity-by-adding-nethermind-erigon/

2024-02-28 16:36

The miner is expected to report a "strong acceleration in Q/Q revenue growth" due to the rally in bitcoin prices, a Jefferies analyst said. Marathon Digital is likely to see strong fourth-quarter sales due to higher bitcoin prices and transaction fees, a Jefferies analyst said. The analyst will also be looking for the miner's potential plan to shift away from third-party hosted mining to self-mining. Bitcoin (BTC) miner Marathon Digital's (MARA) shares outpaced mining peers on Wednesday, ahead of an earnings report that Jefferies expects to be strong mainly due to a rally in BTC prices during the fourth quarter. The shares rose more than 6% in early trading, while other mining stocks are mostly muted even as bitcoin blasted past $60,000 for the first time since November 2021. The Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based miner is slated to report fourth-quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday and is likely to see a significant boost from bitcoin's recent rally and higher transaction fees, Jefferies analyst Jonathan Petersen said in a note. "We expect the company will report a strong acceleration in Q/Q revenue growth due to a nearly 50% increase in avg BTC price from 3Q23. Additionally, transaction fees have been markedly higher in 4Q23, making up about 11% of miner rewards, from just 2% in 3Q23," Petersen said. The transaction fees, which supplement miners' reward of Bitcoin blocks, have been a boon for the miners. Last quarter, due to the popularity of Ordinals, transaction fees saw some significant spikes, helping lift miners' profitability. Wall Street analysts expect Marathon to report fourth-quarter sales of $148.8 million, about 52% higher than third quarter, according to FactSet data. However, the miner is estimated to post earnings per share of $0.04 in the fourth-quarter versus $0.35 in the previous quarter. Peterson will also look for Marathon's plans to move its business toward self-hosted mining and buy up more bitcoin mining computers. Marathon mostly uses third-party data centers to store its mining rigs, which has resulted in some hiccups for the miners. However, Peterson says Marathon has been shifting from that business model, which should help improve profitability. Most recently, Marathon took over full ownership of two mining sites where rival Hut 8 was hosting the company's machines. The miner said that by removing Hut 8 as the third-party operator, it will be able to lower its operating cost and improve operational efficiency. Marathon has risen nearly 20% this year but, alongside other mining companies, has underperformed bitcoin's staggering 44% rally heading into April's bitcoin halving event. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/02/28/bitcoin-miner-marathons-shares-outperform-peers-ahead-of-possible-strong-earnings-report/

2024-02-28 13:30

Spot bitcoin ETFs are seeing massive inflows of money and BTC is crossing $1,000 milestones one after another in quick succession. The price of bitcoin (BTC) topped $63,000 on Wednesday, the original cryptocurrency's first time above that level since the peak of the last bull market in November 2021. This week's giant rally has coincided with huge inflows into U.S.-traded spot ETFs, with the new funds adding more than another 12,000 bitcoin on Tuesday after adding about 10,000 on Monday. And it comes ahead of the so-called bitcoin halving in April, an event that takes place every four years and usually accompanies strong gains as the issuance of new bitcoin slows. Bitcoin has been on a ferocious rally for months, but that has picked up this week. Just a few days ago, its price was below $51,000. It crossed $60,000 just a few hours before exceeding $63,000. At press time, bitcoin was up more than 10% over the past 24 hours. The broader CoinDesk 20 Index, a benchmark of the biggest cryptocurrencies, had rallied 7.8% over the same time period. Bitcoin bulls now have their sights on the crypto's all-time high of $69,045 set on Nov. 10, 2021, according to Coingecko. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/02/28/bitcoin-pushes-through-60k-for-first-time-since-november-2021/

2024-02-28 12:49

The Telegram Ad network will open to advertisers in March, founder Pavel Durov said in a broadcast on his official channel. Telegram to share ad revenue with users starting March, founder Pavel Durov said on his official broadcast channel. Channel owners will receive 50% of ad revenue, with payments settled on TON blockchain. Privacy-focused messaging giant Telegram will start sharing advertisement revenue with channel owners starting in March, founder Pavel Durov said in a broadcast message on his official channel, viewed by CoinDesk, on Wednesday. The network’s native TON token rocketed nearly 40% to over $2.92 after the announcement came out. Meanwhile, the broader CoinDesk 20 index (CD20) jumped 2.5%. “Broadcast channels on Telegram generate 1 trillion views monthly. Currently, only 10% of these views are monetized with Telegram Ads — a promotion tool designed with privacy in mind,” Durov wrote on his channel. “In March, the Telegram Ad Platform will officially open to all advertisers in nearly a hundred new countries. Channel owners in these countries will start receiving 50% of any revenue that Telegram makes from displaying ads in their channels.” Telegram did not respond to CoinDesk's request for comment on its official media channel. Telegram had previously said it had plans to share revenue with certain channel owners, its website shows. All payments and withdrawals will be settled on the TON blockchain, a network created by the same company that built Telegram. The company reported having 800 million monthly users in July 2023. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/02/28/telegram-to-share-ad-revenue-via-ton-blockchain-ton-soars-18/