2023-11-20 09:20

Santander Private Banking International is offering buy, sell and hold services with bitcoin and ether to clients with accounts in Switzerland. CORRECTION (Nov. 20, 10:02 UTC): Corrects headline and story to say service is available for clients with accounts in Switzerland. An earlier version said the service was for Swiss clients. Santander Private Banking International, part of Spanish financial services giant Banco Santander, is offering high-net-worth clients with Swiss accounts trading and investing in the major cryptocurrencies bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), according to an internal announcement seen by CoinDesk. Over the next several months, Santander will offer additional cryptocurrencies that meet the bank’s screening criteria, the announcement said. Santander said the service is provided only upon client request through relationship managers, and the assets are held in a regulated custody model in which the bank stores the private cryptographic keys in a secure environment. This is a bold move, given that most big banks prefer to be twiddling around with tokenization and tend to avoid exposure to open-access blockchains and the cryptocurrencies that run on them. Banco Santander is more than 160 years old and has 166 million customers. The private bank caters to 210,000 wealthy clients, with assets and deposits accounting for about $315 billion. “The Swiss regulation related to digital assets is one of the first and most advanced in the world, since it provides clarity and a comprehensive regulatory environment for our clients,” said John Whelan, head of crypto and digital assets at Santander, in an email. “As holding of crypto as an alternative asset class continues to expand, we expect that our clients prefer to rely on their existing financial institutions to be responsible for their assets.” https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/11/20/santander-private-bank-introduces-bitcoin-ethereum-trading-for-swiss-clients/

2023-11-20 09:11

Altman and other departed OpenAI staff will join a new advanced AI research team at the software giant. Sam Altman, the former CEO of OpenAI, Greg Brockman, the company's co-founder and president, and other former staff members will be joining Microsoft, the software giant's CEO Satya Nadella said in a post on X. Altman left OpenAI last week after the board said it no longer had confidence in him to continue leading the company. Brockman announced his resignation shortly after Altman was ousted. Altman will lead a new advanced AI research team, Nadella said. OpenAI's major investors, led by Nadella, reportedly pushed to reinstate Sam Altman as CEO and replace the current board, following the unexpected firing, with intense negotiations involved in the process. "We’ve learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft, including GitHub, Mojang Studios, and LinkedIn, and I’m looking forward to having you do the same," Nadella said in a post directed at Altman. Nadella said that Microsoft remains committed to its partnership with OpenAI, and looks forward to getting to know new CEO Emmet Shear and working with the company. Worldcoin (WLD), the cryptocurrency of one of Altman's other projects, is up over 10% on the news, according to CoinDesk Indices data. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/11/20/sam-altman-former-openai-ceo-lands-at-microsoft/

2023-11-20 07:13

Developments in key artificial intelligence (AI) companies sometimes drive gains in AI-focused tokens as traders bet on the long-term growth of such tokens. Artificial intelligence (AI)-focused tokens rose over the weekend as developments in key AI companies sparked euphoria around the long-term growth of the emerging technology sector. On Sunday, technology entrepreneur Elon Musk said shareholders of X Corp, which holds a basket of companies, would have a 25% stake in the new AI venture xAI. xAI recently started to test its Grok chatbot, which has already spurred hundreds of replica tokens. Elsewhere, reports of Sam Altman, the founder of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, possibly returning to the board after a surprise ousting last week bolstered bullish sentiment for the AI token sector. Despite the corporate drama, it's unclear if Altman will return as Bloomberg reports that former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear has been named to the company's top job. Bittensor's TAO rose 4.2%, adding to a 77% rally over the past week. Ocean Protocol's OCEAN, Fetch AI's FET and SingularityNet's AGIX zoomed as much as 16% in the past 24 hours, outperforming bitcoin and other majors. The sector jumped nearly 8%, driving the biggest gains for crypto traders. Among small-caps, image generation platform ImgnAI’s IMGNAI jumped 40%. AI tokens started to gain traction among crypto market observers in late 2022 after the public launch of chatbot ChatGPT and image generation software Dall-E. Both are traditional software that does not use cryptocurrencies or blockchain and was launched by OpenAI. However, traders widely consider this sector to be a large narrative of a possible bull run in the coming years, similar to how gaming applications and decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens drove the majority of returns in the 2020-2022 bull market cycle. While reports suggest that Altman, the face of the AI boom, will not return to the company, they failed to douse the momentum of AI tokens. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/11/20/ai-tokens-jump-on-irrational-euphoria-as-musks-x-corp-reveals-xai-shareholding/

2023-11-20 07:02

The inflow comes as bitcoin has gained 7% this month, extending October's 28% rally. Bitcoin (BTC) stashed in wallets tied to centralized cryptocurrency exchanges is rising at the fastest pace since May, hinting at a potential bull pause in the market. Blockchain analytics firm Glassnode's bitcoin exchange net position change metric, which measures the number of coins held by exchange wallets on a specific date compared to the same date four weeks ago, rose to 31,382.43 BTC ($1.16 billion) on Sunday, the highest since May 11, 2023. That has lifted the total balance held on exchanges to 2.35 million BTC. An inflow into exchange wallets is widely taken to represent investors' intention to liquidate their holdings, a potential selling pressure, or deploy coins as a margin in futures and options markets. Meanwhile, an outflow represents accumulation. The BTC exchange net position change has been consistently positive since Nov. 1. Historically, such periods have coincided with bull market breathers or price pullbacks. That said, the latest inflow could also signify renewed investor confidence in centralized exchanges. The safety of coins held in exchange wallets came into question late last year after Sam Bankman Fried's FTX exchange collapsed, which, at the time, was the third largest. That saw investors move coins off exchanges and into their direct custody. Bitcoin changed hands at $37,170 at press time, according to CoinDesk Indices data, having put in a high of $31,517 late Sunday, supposedly on the back of BTC-supportive Javier Milei's victory in Argentina's Presidential elections. The leading cryptocurrency by market value has gained 7.5% this month, extending October's 28% rise, CoinDesk data show. We may earn a commission from partner links. Commissions do not affect our journalists’ opinions or evaluations. For more, see our Ethics Policy. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/11/20/bitcoin-held-in-exchange-wallets-rising-at-pace-of-116b-a-month-data-show/

2023-11-20 00:38

The self-described anarcho-capitalist has been supportive of bitcoin, calling it "the return of money to its original creator, the private sector." The next president of Argentina will be Javier Milei as his opponent Sergio Massa conceded on Sunday evening, saying "Argentines chose another path." With roughly 87% of the votes counted, Milei has 56% of the tally versus Massa's 44%, according to Bloomberg. Trading quietly through most of the weekend, bitcoin (BTC) began rising late Sunday afternoon on chatter about a strong showing for Milei. Following Massa's concession, the crypto currently is higher by nearly 3% over the past 24 hours to $37,350. "We have to understand that the central bank is a scam," said Milei earlier this year when asked about bitcoin. "What bitcoin is representing," he continued, "is the return of money to its original creator, the private sector." Milei to this point, however, has not gone as far as proposing making bitcoin legal tender. He's instead calling to eliminate the country's central bank and dollarizing an Argentine economy that's been walloped by inflation that reached 142% in October. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/11/20/javier-milei-wins-argentine-presidency-bitcoin-gains-nearly-3/

2023-11-17 22:46

Fidelity, BlackRock and other financial firms want to list BTC and ETH ETFs, which could make it easier for investors to invest in crypto. Fidelity became the latest giant financial firm to seek to create an ether ETF. The SEC still needs to approve these applications for them to trade in the U.S. The regulator is mulling bitcoin ETFs, too. ETFs could make it far easier for the average person to invest money in a crypto-linked asset. Money management giant Fidelity is seeking to create an exchange-traded fund that owns Ethereum's ether (ETH), according to a Friday filing, joining rival BlackRock in strengthening its crypto embrace. The Fidelity Ethereum Fund would be listed by an exchange owned by Cboe Global Markets, which posted the fling that revealed the existence of the proposed product. But first, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission must decide whether to approve the ether ETF, as it must for others including one from BlackRock, which was revealed earlier this month. Fidelity and BlackRock also want to create ETFs that give investors easier access to an even bigger cryptocurrency: bitcoin (BTC). The SEC has yet to weigh in on those either. ETFs that hold BTC or ETH, the biggest cryptocurrencies, could – according to optimists – dramatically shake up the crypto market. They are generally easier to buy than crypto; a normal, conventional brokerage account gives an investor access to all manner of ETFs, which trade just like stocks and track assets ranging from the whole stock market to gold, corn and sugar. That could, in theory, bring in a flood of new investment money into digital assets – particularly with the marketing heft of famous firms like Fidelity and BlackRock. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/11/17/fidelity-wants-to-create-an-ether-etf-joining-blackrock-in-doubling-down-on-crypto/