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Crypto News Highlights: Coinbase continued its arguments for dismissal of the lawsuit arguing that the SEC’s overreach in regulating crypto with years-old securities laws. Judge Faila came strong on the SEC over its lack of understanding of digital assets and its use of definition of an investment contact. Failla closed the hearing by making it clear she was not going to rule from the bench and for both parties to take that “as the compliment that it is.”
The crypto market cap has declined more than 1% to $1.68 trillion as altcoins pared back gains in the last few days. Bitcoin price chart looks weak, falling 1% to move further lower to $42,200, with a complete lack of trading volume. Top altcoins including Ethereum losing support level, with ETH price trading 2% lower at $2,520. Solana price holds ground near $100.
However, in the positive of crypto news, Bitcoin ETFs have surpassed Silver ETFs in terms of total assets held under management in the U.S., just a week after trading.
Meanwhile, Reddit has outlined specific plans to begin its initial public offering (IPO) in March, pursuing a listing it has been considering for almost three years.
According to the CEO of Cloudflare, generative AI will produce fantastic things, but they won’t be available anytime soon. He adds “Making an AI demo is quite simple. However, transforming that demo into a product is quite difficult.”
The COTI Ecosystem Growth Fund has been designed as a mechanism to expedite the creation and implementation of COTI V2 while maintaining transaction anonymity, according to a statement that was made public. 400 million COTI tokens are allocated to the fund, which has a current valuation of about $25 million.
“AI is going to keep growing exponentially,” claims the CEO of Defiance ETFs. “2024-2030 are going to be the years when AI comes to fruition.”, she adds.
According to those familiar with the situation, BlackRock, the biggest asset manager in the world, has not yet made it apparent that it plans to introduce a spot XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF). This news comes after a Bitcoin spot ETF was recently approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States. The SEC leadership voted on this decision in split fashion.
The cryptocurrency exchange WOO X announced that it has raised $9 million in its most recent fundraising round from investors, including Wintermute, a producer of cryptocurrency markets.
WOO announced in a statement sent to The Block that it has raised more capital from its approved market makers, including Wintermute, Selini Capital, Time Research, Presto Labs, Pulsar, AlphaLab Capital, Efficient Frontier, Amber, and Riverside Hedge.
A tentative agreement was achieved by the European Council and Parliament on certain aspects of a new anti-money laundering package that would place more stringent regulations on cryptocurrency companies. The group of lawmakers stated in a statement issued on Thursday that the new regulations will apply to “the majority of the crypto sector” and mandate that cryptocurrency companies perform due diligence on their clientele.
In terms of assets under management, bitcoin ETFs have surpassed silver ETFs in the United States after only one week of trading.
Now holding 20,000 Bitcoin valued at nearly $800 million, Fidelity has now emerged as a Wall Street behemoth.
Regarding AI, the CEO of HP predicts that it will be one of the largest shifts to the PC business since the device’s invention 20 years ago. “Our expectation is that three years from now between 40% and 60% of our PCs will be AI PCs.”, he adds.
Bloomberg now expects cryptocurrency market to also see one of the most well-liked plans for 2023 in the $8 trillion exchange-traded fund sector.
A news release states that the Roundhill Bitcoin Covered Call Strategy ETF, which trades under the ticker YBTC, will open for trading on Thursday. Using the futures-backed ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), the actively managed fund tracks the performance of Bitcoin and will sell out-of-the-money calls on it. By sacrificing some of Bitcoin’s upside exposure, that method produces extra revenue but increasing the risk of the cryptocurrency itself underperforming.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance, CEO of Blackstone, Stephen Schwarzman, shares his remarks on the state of the world economy, “Growth is pretty good, surprisingly, he said.” The “consumer” is “holding it up.”
The hash rate of Bitcoin has significantly decreased due to a sudden freeze in Texas, forcing miners there to reduce their activity in order to maintain the state’s electricity infrastructure.
Bloomberg analyst says out of all ETFs, BlackRock and Fidelity’s Bitcoin ETFs rank in the top 5 for fund inflows this week.
Another way to put the bitcoin ETF flows in ETF context (besides showing their #s relative to past new launches) is how they stack up to ALL ETFs in past 1 week flows. Even after four days two of them are in Top 5 and three in Top 10, up there w the studs $VOO, $QQQ et al. pic.twitter.com/oduhktEqwG
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) January 18, 2024
Binance rebounds with a $5 billion inflow and 30% surge in BNB price, showcasing resilience amid regulatory hurdles and leadership changes.
According to Reuters, social media company Reddit has outlined specific plans to begin its initial public offering (IPO) in March, pursuing a listing it has been considering for almost three years.
An RPC attack occurred on the Manta Pacific chain; it is currently being fixed, and accessibility should return shortly.
Bitget introduced Vugar Usi Zade as its new COO. He is purported to have supported Facebook’s entry into 45 new nations. He will spearhead the group’s future growth into developing regions like Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America as well as bolster Bitget’s position in Southeast Asia and Europe.
In Q4 2023, Tether bought 8,888 BTC, increasing its total holdings to 66,465 BTC, or $2.8 billion. According to Tether, it will consistently allocate a portion of its earnings to Bitcoin.
BitMEX Research reports that GBTC saw a net outflow of US$458 million on day four, for a total net outflow of US$1.62 billion. On the fourth day, there were net inflows of $474 million and $1.29 billion into the spot BTC ETF group.
Bloomberg has raised concerns over crypto’s price volatility saying “Yes, crypto has surged since Sam Bankman-Fried went down. And sure, ETFs have made Bitcoin easier to buy than ever before. But the basic story—buyer beware—remains the same.”
Bloomberg adds “it seemed almost unthinkable that any rational person would choose the cryptocurrency roller coaster over the traditional financial system, especially since two of the most powerful and admired people in the industry were probably headed to prison for offenses involving the day-to-day operations of their respective companies.”
MYRO, a meme coin based on Solana, has acquired significant interest among cryptocurrency market fans and has surpassed Pepe Coin in terms of 24-hour trading volume. MYRO’s trading volume as of Thursday, January 18, surpassed Pepe Coin’s $77 million, with an astonishing $98 million.
Notably, this abrupt spike coincides with a significant price increase of more than 65%, highlighting MYRO’s rising prominence in the meme currency market.
As bitcoin tried to regain grounds, in a muted trading, whale transactions worth billions are taking place. In one such transaction, for the first time since 2019, $2 billion worth of dormant Bitcoin was transferred. Since 2013, it had only moved once.
Alchemy Pay recently announced plans to integrate its on-ramp services on Bitcoin.com. With this, the firm offers its users more seamless crypto purchasing with the help of numerous fiat payment methods.
.@BitcoinCom has launched #AlchemyPay's On-Ramp service for its users, enabling them to effortlessly purchase crypto using their chosen fiat payment methods on its website. In addition, @VerseEcosystem’s $VERSE is now available through our Fiat On-Ramp!https://t.co/TxIvAjFAdZ… pic.twitter.com/dzA1tjsHEL
— Alchemy Pay|$ACH: Fiat-Crypto Payment Gateway (@AlchemyPay) January 18, 2024
Binance, the world’s leading crypto exchange, recently issued a statement claiming to discontinue certain spot trading pairs starting January 19 at 03:00 UTC. These pairs are DAR/BNB, DEXE/ETH, ID/BNB, and POLS/BTC.
Bybit, the world’s third-largest crypto exchange, recently unveiled an upgraded version of its Web3 Swap, revolutionizing token swapping across the DeFi realm. With this, the firm eyes facilitating a more secure and easy-to-use platform for its users to seamlessly swap tokens.
The Shiba Inu cryptocurrency curated a tidal wave of speculations across the broader crypto market on Thursday as the token recorded a 2924.74% upswing in its burn rate.
HOURLY SHIB UPDATE$SHIB Price: $0.00000949 (1hr -0.24% ▼ | 24hr -0.59% ▼ )
Market Cap: $5,599,315,239 (-0.50% ▼)
Total Supply: 589,292,187,571,961TOKENS BURNT
Past 24Hrs: 30,247,447 (2924.74% ▲)
Past 7 Days: 142,533,843 (-98.49% ▼)— Shibburn (@shibburn) January 18, 2024
Ripple’s CTO David Schwartz jacked up a recent post shared by global asset manager Franklin Templeton, aligning with the firm’s positive stance on XRPL.
As per recent market data unveiled by BitMEX Research, the net inflows for Bitcoin ETFs on day 4 equals $2.9 billion, excluding GBTC. The top three ETF providers are BlackRock, Fidelity, and Bitwise.
Cointucky Derby – Day 4 Flow – CHART
After 4 days of spot Bitcoin ETFs. There is over $2.9 billion of total inflow (excluding GBTC)
The top three providers after four days by inflow:
1. Blackrock $1,085m 🥇
2. Fidelity $884m 🥈
3. Bitwise $375m 🥉Still waiting for GBTC day 4… pic.twitter.com/Q8bBiVN0nM
— BitMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) January 18, 2024
Binance Futures recently revealed the firm’s plan to launch a USDⓈ-M WIF Perpetual Contract on January 18 at 14:15 (UTC), with up to 50x leverage.
According to the data unveiled by blockchain tracking platform Whale Alert, an unknown wallet address recently transferred 26.1 million XRP to Bitstamp, whereas shifted 20.1 million XRP to Bitso.
🚨 26,100,000 #XRP (14,920,214 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to #Bitstamphttps://t.co/QdiEbTLLix
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) January 17, 2024
🚨 20,100,000 #XRP (11,482,755 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to #Bitsohttps://t.co/E68SrUGQtF
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) January 17, 2024
The Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission recently ruled out plans to free up constraints orbiting digital token investments. With this, the regulatory body aims to foster a new era for crypto market fanatics within the nation, eyeing a more revolutionized crypto infrastructure.
According to recent data unveiled by PeckShield Alert, the BNB Bridge exploiter has been liquidated. This liquidation involved 5.82 million vBNB, worth $42 million, by the whitelist liquidator 0x0870…cf43.
#PeckShieldAlert The position of the BNB Bridge Exploiter has been liquidated, involving 5.82m $vBNB (valued at ~$42 million), by the whitelisted liquidator 0x0870…cf43. pic.twitter.com/MgBK1Jjaf6
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) January 18, 2024
TRON founder Justin Sun’s wallet address 0x9fcc… recently withdrew $3.54 million worth of digital assets from Binance. As per on-chain data, these assets included LINK, FLOKI, MANA, SHIB, and BAND.
Wallet 0x9fcc linked to @justinsuntron withdrew $3.54M worth of 5 assets, including $LINK, $FLOKI, $MANA, $SHIB, and $BAND, from #Binance ~14hrs ago.
Note that Justin Sun also recently withdrew 500B $SHIB (then $5.22M) from #Binance on Dec 19, 2023 via another address.
For more… https://t.co/4VwkFiyZ9V pic.twitter.com/GWU1hStBzm
— Spot On Chain (@spotonchain) January 18, 2024
As per recent on-chain data unveiled by Shibburn, the Shiba crypto community transferred a staggering 25.01 million SHIB to a dead wallet.
🔥 25,013,164 $SHIB -> transferred to dead wallet. https://t.co/7YQfXEgoAV
— Shibburn (@shibburn) January 17, 2024
The Monetary Authority of Singapore recently stated that it would not permit a Bitcoin spot ETF to be listed within the nation. This decision comes following the country’s persisting stance on crypto, declaring tokens such as Bitcoin an ineligible asset for the ETF in Singapore. However, the country’s retail investors can still purchase it through licensed intermediaries.
U.S. presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump promised to “never allow” the Federal Reserve to create a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
“As your president, I will never allow the creation of a Central Bank Digital Currency. Such a currency would give the federal government absolute control over your money.”
TrueUSD (TUSD) stablecoin has depegged to a low of $0.9715 amid major selloff and collateral challenges. The market cap plunges to $1.86 billion.
Crypto community criticized Stripe’s move to prohibit its customers from selling crypto mining hardware.
Paul Grewal, chief legal officer of Coinbase, made a series of attacks on the SEC regarding overreach. Grewal said, “The SEC cannot unilaterally expand and redefine its own regulatory ambit. This should be left up to Congress and the ongoing legislative discussions about regulatory frameworks that are currently taking place.”
Franklin Templeton sets sights on benefits of layer 1 blockchain Solana and Ethereum, after recent focus on Bitcoin. “We believe as blockchains improve in fees and performance, the potential use cases that are unlocked grow exponentially. Improving the economics and experience for the end user cannot be overstated.”
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