2023-11-10 18:17
Digital asset funds surpassed $1 billion in net inflows this year, with money overwhelmingly flowing into BTC-focused investments, CoinShares reported. Bitcoin investment funds hold an all-time high of 863,434 BTC, according to ByteTree. Digital asset funds overall attracted large inflows over the past weeks as spot bitcoin ETF optimism spread to the broader crypto markets. Bitcoin (BTC) investment fund BTC holdings have risen to the highest ever alongside the token's continuing rally thanks in part to optimism about coming approval for a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF). According to investment advisory firm ByteTree, token holdings this week rose to 863,434, taking out the previous record high touched in April 2022. Over the past month, funds have added about 22,100 bitcoins. "Little wonder the price has been so strong of late," ByteTree founder Charlie Morris said. Broader crypto funds enjoyed an uptick in fresh cash over the past weeks as well, with digital asset management firm CoinShares reporting $767 million in net inflows over the past six weeks, the most over such a time frame since the 2021 bull market. Further, James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, earlier Friday noted inflows into digital asset funds so far this year have now topped $1 billion. Bitcoin, of course, is the overwhelming driver of these inflows as investors chase rising prices ahead of what's now expected to be imminent approval of multiple spot BTC ETFs. Speaking to CoinDesk earlier this week, Matt Hougan, Bitwise Asset Management’s Chief Investment Officer, suggested things have a long way to go before the spot ETF approval is priced in. Even with all the news hitting of late, it's Hougan's contention that the majority of financial advisors continue to believe a spot ETF isn't coming until 2025 or later. BTC hit a 18-month high of $37,960 earlier this week, up 39% in the past month and 125% year-to-date. It's currently trading hands at $37,300. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/11/10/bitcoin-fund-holdings-hit-all-time-high-as-spot-etf-excitement-entices-crypto-investors/
2023-11-10 12:06
Poloniex investor Justin Sun confirmed the exploit, saying the exchange will reimburse affected users and offering a "white hat bounty" to the hacker. Cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex has had its hot wallets drained by hackers with an estimated loss of around $114 million, several sets of on-chain data show. A suspected hack was flagged at around 10:55 UTC by blockchain security firms PeckShield and Cyvers. Poloniex announced 12 minutes later that the exchange's wallet had been disabled for maintenance. The hack was later confirmed by Poloniex investor Justin Sun in a tweet. Various wallets across multiple blockchains appear to have been targeted. Arkham data shows that an Ethereum wallet, now tagged as "Poloniex hacker," sent a total of $114 million worth of tokens from Poloniex in 357 transactions. A wallet on the Tron blockchain also sent around $42 million to various wallets. Poloniex is one of the longest-running crypto exchanges, having been founded in 2013. It was acquired by Circle in 2018 and later spun off to several investors including Justin Sun, who revealed that he was a part of the most recent acquisition in 2019. The exchange has facilitated $616 million worth of trading volume over the past 24 hours, its public reserves are not available to view, according to CoinMarketCap. That compares with $19.3 billion for market leader Binance and $3 billion for Coinbase (COIN), the only publicly traded exchange. Crypto exchanges are common targets for hackers. Two months ago HTX was hacked with a total of $8 million worth of ether (ETH) being drained; South Korean exchange Gdac lost $13 million in April and Deribit lost $28 million in a hot-wallet hack last November. On-chain data also show the Poloniex hacker bought $20 million worth of tron (TRX), pushing the token's price up by more than 25%. Blockchain analytics company Nansen reported that there were just 175 tokens left in Poloniex's wallet, worth a total of $10,000. "We are currently investigating the Poloniex hack incident," Sun tweeted. "Poloniex maintains a healthy financial position and will fully reimburse the affected funds. Additionally, we are exploring opportunities for collaboration with other exchanges to facilitate the recovery of these funds." Sun added that the exchange is offering a 5% white hat bounty to the hacker with a deadline of seven days before engaging with law enforcement. Sun posted on X (formerly Twitter) later Friday that Poloniex "successfully identified and frozen a portion of the assets associated with the hacker's addresses." "At present, the losses are within manageable limits, and Poloniex's operating revenue can cover these losses," he added. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/11/10/poloniex-hot-wallets-hacked-65m-seemingly-stolen-on-chain-data/
2023-11-10 11:00
Key options market gauge suggests ether could continue to see more action than bitcoin in the coming weeks. The ETF narrative could have a bigger market impact on ether than it did on bitcoin. Traders are pricing higher volatility in ether relative to bitcoin for the coming weeks, a key market gauge suggests. Ether (ETH), the native token of Ethereum's smart-contract blockchain, surged 12.2% Thursday, outshining bitcoin for the first time in ages. The rally came on reports that BlackRock (BLK), the world's largest asset manager, wants to create an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that purchases ETH and saw the ether-bitcoin ratio rise by 9% from 17-month lows. Activity in the options market suggests ether's outperformance is more than a one-off event and could continue over the near term. The spread between Deribit's forward-looking 30-day implied volatility indices for ether (ETH DVOL) and bitcoin (BTC DVOL) has turned positive in the past 24 hours, reaching a high of 5.9%, the highest since April, according to Amberdata. Implied volatility refers to investors' expectations for price turbulence over a specific period. The positive turnaround indicates traders expect more action in ether over the next four weeks. Perhaps optimism about an eventual launch of a spot BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the U.S. has been priced in, and the focus is now on ether. "The market has been chasing BTC for the last month, but it looks like the spot BTC ETF launch is now very close to being priced in," said Jeff Anderson, a senior trader at STS Digital. "ETH was left behind in October, but the BlackRock filing yesterday reminded everyone that a similar product is not far behind." "The rotation out of BTC into ETH (during alt season was attractive), and so the market chased it and caught people short options, so ETH IV ripped higher," Anderson added. As such, people look to be chasing ether now that it shows signs of life. Bitcoin has surged over 35% since early October, mainly on expectations that a potential spot ETF could bring a $100 billion or more in inflows over five years. Similar inflows could have a bigger impact on ether, whose market capitalization of $252.41 billion is just 1/3 of bitcoin's $713.10 billion. "ETH has a relatively minor market cap than BTC, which means that when the same size of liquidity flows into ETH, the price of ETH will be pushed higher, and the volatility will be greater," Griffin Ardnern, a volatility trader from crypto asset management firm Blofin, said. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/11/10/was-ethers-bitcoin-beating-surge-a-one-off-or-has-the-tide-really-turned/
2023-11-10 09:50
Saylor’s business software company, MicroStrategy, held more than 158,000 bitcoins as of Friday. The surging price of bitcoin (BTC) has pushed the asset’s largest public holder, business software company MicroStrategy (MSTR), to unrealized gains of over $1.1 billion, 25% more than their cumulative investment. Bitcoin holdings at the company founded by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, who often tweets his support for the largest cryptocurrency, reached $5.7 billion late on Thursday as the price crossed $37,000 for the first time since May 2022. The company holds over 158,000 bitcoins, a position it acquired over a three-year period by investing company funds and proceeds from bond sales. The value of the holdings is now equal to over 80% of MicroStrategy’s $7.1 billion stock market capitalization. The cost for these holdings is a cumulative $4.6 billion, data from Bitcoin Treasuries show. That's more than 10 times larger than the next biggest institutional holder, bitcoin miner Marathon Digital, which has 13,000 bitcoins worth $500 million at current prices. MicroStrategy’s most recent publicly known purchases came in the weeks ahead of Sept. 24, when it added 5,445 bitcoins for just under $150 million, or an average price of $27,053 each. Bitcoin has surged recently amid optimism U.S. regulators will approve exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that hold BTC, a move some experts believe will prompt a flood of investment into the foremost cryptocurrency. Those expectations increased Wednesday following a CoinDesk report that the Securities and Exchange Commission has opened talks with Grayscale Investments on the details of the company's application to convert its bitcoin trust, known as GBTC, into a bitcoin ETF. Grayscale is owned by CoinDesk's parent, DCG. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/11/10/michael-saylors-massive-bitcoin-bet-crosses-1b-in-unrealized-profit/
2023-11-10 07:56
Fees spiked to as high as 270 gwei late on Thursday, the data shows, temporarily touching a level last seen in June 2022. Heightened demand for block space on the Ethereum network has made transactional activity significantly more expensive for ether (ETH) users in the past 24 hours, data from Dune Analytics show. Fees, as measured by median gas prices, spiked to as high as 270 gwei late on Thursday, temporarily touching a level last seen in June 2022. That pushed up costs of trading swaps to anywhere from $60 to $100 for a few hours. Gwei is a small unit of ether (ETH) equal to one-billionth of an ETH and is used to denominate gas prices. Gas refers to the fees Ethereum users pay to ensure their transactions are included in the earliest block by network validators. As of writing, gas fees, used to pay for any activity on Ethereum, were 33 gwei, the highest since May. Ether transfers between wallets cost an average of $30 as of Asian morning hours on Friday. The surge in fees came as investors discovered financial behemoth BlackRock had filed for an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that holds ether (ETH), months after its bitcoin ETF filing. This likely buoyed investor sentiment – as prices jumped as much as 10% to cross the $2,000 mark. Ethereum validators are incentivized to include transactions that pay the highest fees instead of a first-come-first-serve basis – meaning fees on popular tokens can often run to thousands of dollars. Nansen data suggests that on-chain activity has remained tepid relative to a more bullish period in 2022 – indicating retail audiences have been largely absent from on-chain trading. “There is no inclination of on-chain activity increasing alongside it in terms of DAUs and newly funded addresses entering the Ethereum ecosystem,” Nansen analyst Jake Kennis shared in a Thursday message. “This suggests that on-chain activity may be lagging price action here or that we are not seeing the on-chain follow-through that is normally seen with this type of increased market activity as of yet," Kennis added. https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/11/10/ethereum-fees-briefly-jumped-to-100-after-blackrocks-eth-etf-filing/
2023-11-10 07:17
The news comes a day after HSBC, one of the world's largest banks, said it plans to start a digital-assets custody service for institutional clients. Swiss bank UBS' wealthy clients can now take exposure to three crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) through the lender's Hong Kong platform, according to a Bloomberg report citing a person familiar with the matter. The three crypto ETFs, Samsung Bitcoin Futures Active, CSOP Bitcoin Futures and CSOP Ether Futures ETFs, are all authorized by Hong Kong's securities regulator, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC). Together, the three products boast assets worth around $72 million. Significantly, the news comes a day after HSBC, one of the world's largest banks, said it plans to start a digital assets custody service for institutional clients. In the past few days, Hong Kong has moved towards allowing retail investors to buy spot crypto Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and primary dealing of tokenization. The move appears to be another step in Hong Kong's recently accelerated ambitions to become a virtual asset hub. It implemented a new regulatory regime in June, accepting applications for crypto trading platform licenses, and granted the first set in August, allowing exchanges to serve retail customers. UBS and the SFC did not immediately respond to a CoinDesk request for comment. Recently, UBS was named as one of six commercial banks working with the Swiss National Bank (SNB) on a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot. Earlier this year, in March, UBS stepped in to save Credit Suisse after the latter collapsed. Shortly after bitcoin climbed above $28,000. Read More: Hong Kong Reverses Stance on Spot-Crypto, ETF Investing, With a Catch https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/11/10/ubs-groups-wealthy-clients-can-now-trade-some-crypto-etfs-in-hong-kong-bloomberg/
