2024-08-27 12:06

Miners want to secure large data center capacity with access to low cost power and capital, the report said. The bitcoin mining sector is in the middle of a wave of M&A, the report said. Architect Partners said miners want to secure large data center capacity with access to low cost power and capital. The effect of miner concentration is yet to be seen, the note said. The bitcoin (BTC) mining sector is in the middle of a consolidation phase which was triggered by the recent halving in April, investment bank Architect Partners said in a report on Sunday. "The strategic driver is to secure large and scalable data center capacity with access to low cost power and capital, all made easier as a company gets larger," managing partner Eric Risley and analyst Arjun Mehra wrote. Bitfarms' (BITF) planned acquisition of Stronghold Digital Mining (SDIG) is evidence of this recent M&A trend. The deal is noteworthy as Bitfarms was subject to an unsolicited takeover offer from rival miner Riot Platforms (RIOT) in May, and Riot has since bought 19% of Bitfarms' stock in the open market, agitated to replace management, and fought a proxy battle to replace two board members, the report said. "Sometimes the best defense is offense," the authors wrote, adding that Bitfarms has subsequently announced the acquisition of Stronghold together with management and board changes. Still, hostile M&A can be tricky, the report cautioned, and such deals are unusual in technology and financial services business which rely on the talent of people. "However, bitcoin mining is very different where physical facilities with access to electricity and widely available computing equipment are the core assets." Architect Partners said the current consolidation phase is ironic as the bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto's original vision was that anyone could set up a computer to mine the cryptocurrency, that everyone could run the network, and that no one would control a large amount of the hashrate. Hashrate is a proxy for competition in the industry and mining difficulty. The effects of concentration in the mining sector are yet to be seen, but some like Jack Dorsey and the Block (SQ), the company he founded, are attempting to reverse this trend by "building semiconductors and systems to support a return to mining decentralization," the report added. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/08/27/bitcoin-mining-sector-is-in-a-consolidation-phase-architect-partners/

2024-08-27 12:00

The driving motivation behind the changes was "how to scale DeFi to gigantic size" and grow a decentralized stablecoin, Rune Christensen said in an interview with CoinDesk. The new USDS stablecoin and SKY governance token will be available on Sept. 18 with a new DeFi application to interact with the protocol. The protocol's established tokens DAI and MKR will remain in circulation unchanged, and users can decide voluntarily to exchange. MKR advanced over 4% immediately after the news. The changes are part of the protocol ongoing overhaul called Endgame. MakerDAO, one of the oldest and largest decentralized finance (DeFi) lenders, is getting a new name and new tokens as part of its on-going revamp. Maker has rebranded to "Sky," according to a press release on Tuesday. The protocol, which has $7 billion of assets, will also introduce new versions of its $5 billion stablecoin (DAI) and governance token (MKR), called the USDS stablecoin and the SKY governance token. DAI and MKR will stay in circulation unchanged, with the new tokens existing in parallel. Token holders will be able to exchange DAI tokens 1:1 for USDS, while each MKR token can be swapped for 28,000 SKY tokens. The new tokens will be issued on Sept. 18, and holders can voluntarily choose to keep the old tokens or exchange for the new ones. MKR's price gained over 4% immediately after the news, and is up 2% over the past 24 hours, outperforming bitcoin (BTC) and the broad-market crypto benchmark CoinDesk 20 index (CD20). "The fundamental factor was how to grow DeFi to gigantic scale, something as big as Tether or even bigger," Rune Christensen, MakerDAO's co-founder, said in an interview with CoinDesk. Tether issues the $116 billion USDT, the largest stablecoin on the market. Christensen spearheaded the protocol's major, multi-year overhaul called the "Endgame." As part of the process, he first laid out plans of introducing "upgraded" versions of the platform's stablecoin and governance token in May 2023 in a governance forum post. The protocol is hinging its growth goals on native token rewards for USDS and SKY holders through the protocol's new user interface, the Sky.money application, Christensen said. The reward accrual function, however, will be restricted for certain jurisdictions including the U.S. and U.K. The overhaul also includes breaking up the platform into smaller, independent entities with their own tokens. These organizations, earlier referred to as SubDAOs, will be named Stars as part of the rebranding effort. The first one of these entities is set to be Spark, the lending platform built on top of Maker/Sky. But the transformation will not happen until "a few months later when the whole experience has been tested and ramped up," Chistensen said during the interview. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/08/27/makerdao-is-now-sky-as-7b-crypto-lender-rolls-out-new-stablecoin-governance-token/

2024-08-27 11:01

The fund, set for launch in September, will be available to corporates, businesses and professional investors Xapo Bank and Hilbert Capital, the asset management arm of Swedish investment firm Hilbert Group (HILB), plan to manage a bitcoin (BTC)-denominated hedge fund with an initial capital of $200 million. The fund, set to launch in September, will be available to corporates, businesses and professional investors, according to an announcement on Tuesday. "We believe that offering the right products for participants in the space who are aiming not only for exposure to the Bitcoin price, but also structured ways to grow the Bitcoin value of those investments is a natural evolution of the asset class," Xapo Director Joey Garcia said. The firms have not said specifically what the fund's fees will be, though did say they will be "at a lower level than other 2% and 20% hedge funds". This refers to a fee structure where the manager charges 2% as a management fee and 20% as a performance fee on the fund's upside. The growth of bitcoin hedge funds could be seen as a barometer for increasing institutional adoption of crypto, as the investment class signals demand for sophisticated products beyond what can be offered to retail investors. Read More: The Case for Crypto Index Funds https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/08/27/crypto-bank-xapo-to-manage-200m-bitcoin-denominated-hedge-fund-with-hilbert-capital/

2024-08-27 10:40

One report said that India's Information Technology Ministry asked the Nation's Home Ministry for an update on where things stand in the Indian context and if there are any violations in India after Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France. Telegram is under investigation in India but a ban is not imminent, multiple reports in India have said. India's Information Technology Ministry asked the Nation's Home Ministry for an update into the Telegram investigation after CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France. Telegram, perhaps the most prominent messaging service used by the cryptocurrency ecosystem, is under scrutiny in India, but there is no immediate danger of a ban, multiple reports have indicated. India's cybercrime wing has been probing Telegram for misuse in criminal activities and the instant messaging service could be banned in the world's largest democracy if the agency deems it so, Indian news outlet Moneycontrol reported, citing a government official. A ban is not imminent and Telegram is compliant with India's Information Technology (IT) rules, unnamed sources from the Ministry of Home Affairs told the nation's Republic News. The sources also said that the investigation is focused on the potential misuse of Telegram in a major controversy, the exam paper leak scandal of the test for admissions to the nation's undergraduate medical programs. The Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre falls under the Ministry of Home Affairs and is conducting the probe in coordination with the Ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY). News agency PTI reported that MeitY asked the Home Ministry for an update on where things stand in the Indian context and if there are any violations in India after Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France over the weekend. India has previously banned TikTok, along with 58 other Chinese apps, after deadly conflict on the border with China. However, a court case by the Indian government against WhatsApp and its parent firm, Meta hit a roadblock. "As a platform, we are saying, if we are told to break encryption, then WhatsApp goes," the platform's advocate told an Indian court. "Locally, a Telegram ban will have a lasting negative impact on the business development and marketing of the more than 300 solid web3 projects from India," said Ayush Ranjan, CEO of Huddle01, a DePIN dedicated to making real-time communication performant. "Millions of Indians are active members...disrupting this communication would also impact the price formation of projects’ tokens. If the ban goes through, people will have to move to other app." India has also blocked foreign crypto exchanges in the past, even if it wasn't entirely clear how many Indians used VPNs or Virtual Private Networks to continue accessing the platforms. The nation overturned the ban for at least some of those exchanges after they were licensed. The Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre and Telegram did not immediately respond to a CoinDesk's request for comment. Read More: Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Could be Free by October, Polymarket Bettors https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/08/27/telegram-under-scrutiny-in-india-but-ban-not-imminent-reports/

2024-08-27 09:26

QCP Capital noted an increase in call spread buying with the selling of calls marked for the $100,000 per bitcoin level. The strategy suggesting a generally bullish mood, but not an explosive move higher in the short term. Bitcoin fell below $63,000, marking a 1.4% drop in 24 hours, influenced by profit-taking after a recent rally. QCP Capital noted options-market activity that suggests a generally bullish mood, but not an explosive move higher in the short term. SafePal's SFPlus release boosted its SFP token value by up to 8% over the past week by adding rewards to encourage staking. Bitcoin (BTC) slid under $63,000 early Tuesday as profit-taking after a weekend rally extended into a second day and weighed on the broader crypto market. BTC fell 1.4% in 24 hours, CoinGecko data shows, with ether (ETH), BNB Chain's BNB, Cardano's ADA and xrp (XRP) falling as much as 2%. Memecoin dogecoin (DOGE) led majors lower with a 4% slide, while Ton Network's TON – hit by the arrest of the CEO of closely related Telegram – fell 4% to bring seven-day losses to more than 20%. The broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a liquid index of the largest tokens by market capitalization, fell 1.5%. QCP Capital, Singapore-based trading desk, noted an increase in call spread buying while noting the selling of bitcoin calls at the $100,000 level. The strategy suggests a generally bullish mood, but not an explosive move higher in the short term. A call option gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to purchase an asset at a specific price, called the "strike" or "exercise" price, on or before a specific date, called the "expiration." Calls are implicitly bullish. A put option gives the buyer the right to sell an asset at the strike price on or before the expiration date. A bull call spread consists of one long call with a lower strike price and one short call with a higher strike price. Both calls have the same underlying asset, such as bitcoin, in this case. "Even with higher spot, BTC and ETH vols are currently more skewed for puts than calls till Oct," QCP said in a Telegram broadcast. "This is surprising given the overwhelmingly bullish sentiment. It possibly indicates that the market was well positioned for this move and was quick to profit by selling calls." SafePal's SFP gets staking boost A new points feature for crypto wallet provider SafePal's SFP tokens has sent prices up as much as 8% in the past week, outperforming gains in bitcoin and other major tokens. The so-called SFPlus update seeks "genuine" token holders who stake the tokens for a longer term instead of simply storing them as part of the wallet balance. Holders begin accumulating an online score that grows over time the longer the SFP is staked. The points can be redeemed for certain rewards. "Stakers can access exclusive benefits like airdrop rewards, discounts on our hardware wallets, and upgraded account tiers in our CeDeFi banking gateway among other features, and partnerships we've developed as a wallet suite seamlessly through SFPlus hub" said CEO and co-founder Veronica Wong in an interview with CoinDesk. "This aligns the interests of loyal $SFP holders closer with our wallet users, and is part of efforts in addressing an industry issue where the growth of a project doesn't necessarily translate to its token holders, especially in the long term," she said. "It has only been a few days since the launch of SFPlus, but there is already close to 1.5 million $SFP staked from over 100,000 wallets, with continued steady growth despite the uncertain market conditions." https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/08/27/bitcoin-drops-below-63k-on-profit-taking-as-safepals-spf-gets-points-boost/

2024-08-27 08:49

Demand for digital assets has dried up in recent weeks and both bitcoin and ether ETFs have seen net outflows in the last month, the report said. The crypto market has struggled since the launch of spot ether ETFs, the report said. Citi noted that spot bitcoin and ether ETFs have seen net outflows in the past month. Stablecoins have been the outlier, with market caps continuing to grow, the bank said. The cryptocurrency market has struggled since the launch of trading of spot ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S. on July 23, Citi said in a research report on Friday. The bank noted that other risk assets have also been weak over this period, but crypto has underperformed since the post-nonfarm payrolls (NFP) rebound, on a volatility-adjusted basis. Nonfarm payrolls is a U.S. employment report usually published on the first Friday of every month. "Crypto demand has dried up in recent weeks," the report said, adding that spot bitcoin (BTC) and ether ETFs have seen net outflows in the last month. "These outflows have also coincided with relatively muted search interest and subdued network activity," analysts led by David Glass wrote. This weaker demand is also evident in futures funding rates, which briefly turned negative in August, the bank said. Citi said that ETF flows may continue to disappoint until the market has more transparency on the "soft-landing versus hard-landing outcome" for the U.S. economy. Stablecoins have bucked this recent negative trend in digital assets, with supply continuing to grow despite the market correction in August, the report added. A stablecoin is an type of cryptocurrency that is usually pegged to the U.S. dollar, though some other currencies and assets such as gold are also used. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/08/27/crypto-market-has-struggled-since-spot-ether-etfs-started-trading-citi/