2023-12-11 16:46

A "flash crash" in thin trading Sunday evening, saw bitcoin's price plunge nearly 10% from the $44,000 level in the space of a few minutes. Shares of cryptocurrency-related companies were sharply lower Monday following bitcoin's (BTC) swift overnight drop. MicroStrategy (MSTR), which holds nearly 175,000 BTC in its treasury, is lower by 6%, while crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) was down over 5%. Nasdaq-listed bitcoin miners Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA), Riot Platforms (RIOT), Hut 8 (HUT) and CleanSpark (CLSK) suffered even steeper losses of 10%-15% in late-morning Monday action. The price drop followed a swift correction in crypto markets Sunday evening, with BTC dropping nearly 10% from the $44,000 level in the space of a few minutes in what might be termed a "flash crash." At press time, bitcoin was trading at $41,700, down about 5% over the past 24 hours. The CoinDesk Market Index (CMI), a basket of almost 200 crypto assets, was also down 5%, highlighting the broad-market negative day. Even with today's losses, crypto stocks have still staged a massive recovery in 2023. Several companies' shares have more than doubled since the start of the year, fueled by the crypto market rally, declining interest rates and heightened anticipation for a potential regulatory approval of a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval in the U.S. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/12/11/coinbase-microstrategy-marathon-stocks-buckle-5-10-as-bitcoin-tumbles-below-42k/

2023-12-11 09:47

ARK has been consistently selling Coinbase stock in recent weeks. Friday's is the largest sale since July, when it sold 480,000 shares worth $50.5 million at the time. Cathie Wood's ARK Invest sold another 335,860 shares in cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) on Friday, its largest sale since July. ARK offloaded COIN shares across three exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The bulk came from the Innovation ETF (ARKK). The sale would have raised $49.2 million at Coinbase's closing price. The St. Petersburg, FL-based investment manager has been making consistent sales of Coinbase stock in recent weeks as the exchange's shares have appreciated alongside bitcoin's rally. Friday's is the largest since July, when it sold 480,000 shares worth $50.5 million at the time. ARK adopts a target weighting for its ETFs, where individual composite holdings' weightings don't dip below 2% of the value of the fund nor exceed 10%. The recent rally in COIN stock, which has reached highs not seen since April 2022, means its weighting in the three ETFs has been comfortably in excess of 10%. Even with the recent sales, COIN accounts for more than 11% of ARKK and the Next Generation ETF (ARKW) and over 13% of the Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF). COIN closed on Friday at $146.62, up 7.66% on the day. ARK also sold 102,672 shares in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), worth around $3.6 million. GBTC accounts for 8.33% of ARKW. Read More: Grayscale Setting Up for Bitcoin ETF Race by Hiring Industry Veteran From Invesco https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/12/11/cathie-woods-ark-invest-sells-492m-worth-of-coinbase-shares/

2023-12-11 06:27

Australia has taken a cautious approach to the larger crypto industry ever since the collapse of FTX. Crypto venture capital firm C1, which is led by former Coinbase executives, has met with several cryptocurrency groups and Australian venture firms offering to buy private holdings from investors using its $500 million ($AUD 760 million) fund, according to the Australian Financial Review. Among the cryptocurrency entities C1 has reached out to are gaming and metaverse-focused venture capital firm Animoca Brands and Chainalysis, the blockchain analysis entity. C1 has offered to buy private holdings from investors at between 50% and 80% discount on their last valuation, according to the report. Australia has taken a cautious approach to the larger crypto industry ever since the collapse of FTX. Its government has proposed a regime that could take until 2025 for an Australian digital asset platform to receive a licence, updated its tax guidelines to impose capital gains tax on wrapped tokens too, and declared that it won’t be introducing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for some years. But with the crypto market gaining momentum, sentiment may be changing down under. The report attributed the information to a pitch deck outlining C1’s strategy – seek out entities with a “minimum valuation of $300 million in their last funding round, preferably Series C and later.” The report said C1 wants to write cheques between $20 million and $50 million. “Due to current market conditions in the public and private markets, hyperinflation and rising interest rates, we believe the digital assets market offers very attractive valuations in the secondary market,” the deck reads, according to the report. “C1 did not authorize this article, and we have not met with either company directly as of this time,” said Dr. Najam Kidwai, co-founder and managing partner of C1. Animoca and Chainalysis did not immediately respond to CoinDesk's request for comment. Read More: Australia Proposes New Licensing Regime for Crypto Exchanges, Aims for Draft Legislation by 2024 https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/12/11/crypto-vc-c1-with-coinbase-lineage-eyes-acquisition-in-austalia-report/

2023-12-11 06:02

Funding rates for major tokens, including BTC, have normalized to below 0.1%, indicating an exit of over leveraged bulls. Bitcoin (BTC) fell early Monday, validating the caution signaled by the options market last week. The 4% drop to $42,000 has cooled the overheated crypto perpetual futures market, clearing the way for a steady ascent into the year-end. Perpetuals are futures with no expiry with a funding rate mechanism that helps tether perpetual prices to the index price. Funding rates are periodic payments of an asset between long (buy) and short (sell) position holders calculated and collected by exchanges every eight hours. A positive funding rate means the perpetual contract is trading at a premium to the spot prices; longs are dominant and are paying shorts to keep their positions open. A negative rate suggests otherwise. A high funding rate, typically greater than 0.10% (for eight hours), is taken to represent excess bullish leverage or overcrowding of long positions. According to data source Velo Data, funding rates for BTC, ETH and other major cryptocurrencies consistently tapped the 0.15% mark in the second half of last week, signifying an overheated leveraged market. The situation has normalized with the early Asian session market-wide price drop, leaving funding rates for most coins in a healthy territory below 0.1%. It's a sign overleveraged traders have been shaken out of the market. Funding rates or costs associated with leverage become a burden when the momentum stalls, forcing overleveraged traders to exit and causing a minor bullish/bearish hiccup. The market-wide decline in the notional open interest, or the dollar value locked in open crypto futures contracts, suggests the same. As of writing, XLM, UNI, LINK and XMR showed a double-digit slide in open interest for the past 24 hours. Open interest in bitcoin and ether was down 1.3% and 6.7%, respectively. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/12/11/bitcoins-4-drop-cools-overheated-funding-rates-data-show/

2023-12-11 02:53

Bitcoin and Ether lead in liquidation heatmap with over $335 million in rekt positions in the last 12 hours. Bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), Solana's SOL, and other major altcoins began the Asia trading day in the red as the week opened with volatility. Bitcoin was down as low as 5% over a 24-hour period, trading at $41,300, before recovering to $42,000, according to CoinDesk Indices data. Ether hit a low of $2,170 before climbing back up to $2,239. Solana was down to $66 before climbing back to $70. Most of these losses took place within the last 90 minutes, as of press time. The CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) is down 4% to 1,743. “The broader market has seen a minor adjustment at the start of this week due to the better-than-expected nonfarm payroll and lower unemployment," Greta Yuan, Head of Research, at VDX, a regulated exchange in Hong Kong, told CoinDesk in an email interview. "The stronger labor market slightly diminished the hope of the Fed lowering the rate early next year. Gold price also dropped with the US dollar index rallied.” Coinglass data shows that there had been over $335 million in liquidations over the last 12 hours, with $300 million in long positions being liquidated. Bitcoin and ether lead the way in the liquidation heatmap, with over $89 million in bitcoin positions getting liquidated and $74 million in ether. “The recent minor correction in the broader market is part of the rational process of profit-taking as traders might have hit the price target at the end of the year given BTC rallied over 70% since Oct," Lucy Hu, Senior Analyst, at Metalpha said in an interview on WeChat. "We will closely follow the CPI and U.S. Fed meeting this week, which could potentially result in further corrections,” she added. On-chain analyst Willy Woo wrote on X that the market may see a correction in bitcoin prices down to $39,700. The Bitcoin CME Gap at 39,700 refers to a situation where bitcoin's price on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange jumped, leaving a gap at $39,700, and historically, such gaps usually get filled, meaning the price often returns to this level. Price gaps in the CME futures market for bitcoin occur due to its hours of operation being aligned with U.S. trading hours, leading to potential price differences at market open and close. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/12/11/btc-eth-sol-and-major-altcoins-begin-asia-business-day-in-deep-red/

2023-12-09 20:50

Several of the frozen wallets had been using Tornado Cash over the past six months. Stabelcoin issuer Tether froze 41 wallets controlled by people on the Office of Foreign Assets Control's (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List on Saturday. Tether described the actions as "precautionary measures" in a blog post. On-chain data shows that several wallets had been using coin-mixing service Tornado Cash in the past six months. One of the frozen wallets is also associated with the $625 million Ronin Bridge attack, which, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, was executed by North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group. "By executing voluntary wallet address freezing of new additions to the SDN List and freezing previously added addresses, we will be able to further strengthen the positive usage of stablecoin technology and promote a safer stablecoin ecosystem for all users," said Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino. In October, Tether froze 32 wallets that were linked to terrorism and warfare in Ukraine and Israel. It also froze $225 million last month in relation to a human trafficking syndicate following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/12/09/tether-freezes-41-crypto-wallets-tied-to-sanctions/