Strengthens
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the best performer for the week was Martin Shkreli, which rose 714.06%.
- Bitcoin rallied amid a broad, risk-on mood in global markets, trading above $22,000 for the first time since June 8 and testing the upper limit of the tight range it has been stuck in for the past month. Cryptocurrencies’ resilience in the face of seemingly damaging news, such as last week’s worse-than-expected U.S. inflation report, adds to indications that the selloff that pumped in about $2 trillion of digital assets may have run its course, Bloomberg writes.
- Marathon Digital shares surged as much as 36% on Monday, Bloomberg reports, its biggest gain since February 2021. The move led to a jump in cryptocurrency-related stocks as Bitcoin climbed above $22,000 to hit its highest level in about a month. Other crypto stocks that moved higher include Riot, Hut 8, Coinbase and Hive Blockchain, just to name a few, the article continues.
Weaknesses
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the worst performer for the week was the Loop X Network, down 99.96%.
- Mike Novogratz, the billionaire investor who once called himself the “Forrest Gump of Bitcoin,” said the recent turbulence in the cryptocurrency industry is a “full-fledged credit crunch” and admitted he was “damn wrong” about the extent of its influence. in the system. “What I don’t think people expected was the magnitude of the losses that would appear on the balance sheets of professional institutions and that caused the chain of events,” Novogratz said at the Bloomberg Crypto Summit on Tuesday, writes Bloomberg.
- Crypto Exchange Zipmex, which operates in markets such as Singapore and Thailand, has stopped withdrawals “for the time being”, writes Bloomberg. The company cites “volatile market conditions, and the resulting financial difficulties of our key business partners”.
Possibilities
- French bank BNP Paribas is getting into crypto custody via a partnership with Swiss custody firm Metaco. Metaco, which recently signed a custody technology deal with French bank Societe Generale, is becoming the go-to provider for banks and institutions looking to enter the crypto space, according to Bloomberg.
- Silvergate Capital Corp. said that deposits from digital currency customers remained stable in the second quarter, a sign that the bank and its clients are weathering the cryptocurrency route, writes Bloomberg. Deposit resilience could help undo some of the damage done to some of the best-known cryptobank stocks in the first half of this year, the article explains.
- Retail traders, responsible for the wild swings in everything from GameStop to Revlon, have returned to another old favorite, downbeat cryptocurrency stocks. Over the past 10 days, the group has raised nearly $1 billion in shares of crypto-exposed companies, writes Bloomberg.
Threats
- South Korean financial regulators are investigating abnormal currency transactions at some of the country’s largest commercial banks for links to money laundering or currency speculation using crypto-assets. Some of the transactions involved crypto exchanges, according to a senior financial regulatory official who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the investigation, writes Bloomberg.
- US authorities arrested a former Coinbase Global Inc. product manager for allegedly leaking inside information to help his brother and a friend buy tokens just before they were listed on the crypto exchange. Wahi tipped off his brother Nikhil Wahi, and a friend Sameer Raminin, when the tokens were about to be listed by the exchange. Nikhil Wahi and Raminin, who are also subject to the government’s investigation, allegedly used this information to trade dozens of tokens from at least June 2021 to April 2021 for a profit of more than $1 million, Bloomberg reports.
- South Korean prosecutors raided the home of Terraform Labs co-founder Daniel Shin, deepening an investigation into allegations of illegal activity behind the collapsed stablecoin TerraUSD. A series of raids on the crypto exchange and offices on Wednesday also included Shin’s home and his payment app Chai Corp., prosecutors in Seoul’s southern district said, as reported by Bloomberg.
