2024-06-06 12:33

As well as Mastercard payments, the Binance-branded Visa card, which was also switched off last year, has restarted functionality on the exchange. MasterCard is understood to be resuming services for payments and deposits in crypto on Binance. Mastercard withdrawal services have not been resumed as yet but this is expected to happen at a later date. Binance can once again allow Mastercard users to purchase cryptocurrencies on the world’s largest exchange, after the card giant switched off that capability in August of 2023. Last year’s decision by the card networks to part ways with Binance happened around the time the exchange was grappling with legal challenges in the U.S., including multiple charges by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). “Following an extensive review of the rigorous controls and processes that Binance put into place, Mastercard made the decision to allow Binance-related purchases on its network,” a Binance spokesperson said via email. “We look forward to adding support for further products, such as withdrawals, at a later date.” Mastercard confirmed the restoration of service, but added a caveat. "Over the past several months, we have reviewed the enhanced controls and processes that Binance has put into place. It is based on those efforts that we have decided to allow Binance-related purchases on our network," a Mastercard spokesperson told CoinDesk. "This status is contingent on ongoing reviews." Both Visa and Mastercard are enthusiastic about crypto these days, delivering into the Web3 and self-custody wallet space. Correction: Removes updates on Visa-branded cards from story https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/06/06/binance-resumes-mastercard-payments-for-crypto/

2024-06-06 11:37

Favorable payroll data could open the way to $80,000 per bitcoin by end-June, Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick said in a Thursday note. Bitcoin’s value could potentially reach $150,000 by the end of 2024. This is based on the assumption that Donald Trump’s U.S. election victory would be a positive boost for the crypto industry. Bitcoin (BTC) remains on track to touch the aspirational $150,000 level by the end of this year as spot BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) continue to see significant inflows. “I am sticking with my end-2024 $150K and end-2025 $200K forecasts for BTC,” Standard Chartered’s forex and digital assets research head Geoffrey Kendrick said in a Thursday note shared with CoinDesk. “Before then, if tomorrow’s payrolls data are friendly I would expect a fresh all-time-high to be reached over the weekend.” “As we approach the U.S. election, I expect $100K to be reached and then $150k by year-end in the case of a Trump victory,” Kendrick added. As of Thursday, crypto traders on Polymarket are betting 56% odds of Trump being in office, compared to 36% for incumbent Joe Biden. Sentiment for bitcoin and the broader crypto market has risen since May on the listing approval for ether (ETH) ETFs and support for the industry among U.S. political parties. ETFs crossed $15 billion in net inflows on Tuesday for the first time since going live in January, boosting sentiment among bitcoin traders. Inflow activity has picked up recently after a dismal few weeks from mid-April to early May, a period that saw zero net inflows on some days and even outflows from major ETFs such as BlackRock’s IBIT. Spot bitcoin ETFs saw over $880 million in inflows on Tuesday, led by Fidelity’s FBTC. This was the best day of inflows since March and the second-highest overall. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/06/06/bitcoin-could-hit-150k-by-2024-end-on-hopes-of-donald-trump-being-re-elected-standard-chartered/

2024-06-06 11:29

Institutional investors on crypto exchange Bybit increased meme coin allocations to a high of $300 million in April from $63 million at the start of the year. Institutional allocations to meme coins have surged over 300% this year, touching a high of almost $300 million in April. The influx highlights professional investors' growing interest in the sector, according to Bybit. Dogecoin and shiba inu were favored for their liquidity, with BONK the most popular new meme coin. Institutional allocations to meme coins have climbed more than 300% this year, hitting an April peak of almost $300 million, according to crypto exchange Bybit. The influx indicates how the sector is enjoying newfound favor among professional investors, Bybit said in a Wednesday report. Popular picks among institutional investors were dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB), mainly owing to their ample spot-market liquidity. Holdings were tracked exclusively on Bybit and do not include those on other exchanges. Solana meme token BONK emerged as the most favored of the new meme coins that have come to prominence this year, attracting over $75 million in institutional bets. Holdings dropped to by almost half to $125 million in May as the institutions took profits. Stablecoin holdings fell during the period to $1.4 billion from $1.7 billion, while exposure to bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and meme coins increased. As of May 1, DOGE had the largest share of meme coin holdings for both retail and institutional investors. Institutions allocated a larger proportion of funds to DOGE: 36% compared with retail investors' 24.5%. “This suggests that while both groups view DOGE as a staple asset within the memecoin space, institutions favor it more, perhaps due to its higher liquidity and relative stability,” Bybit said. “Both cohorts also enjoy Ethereum-based memecoins (PEPE) and (SHIB), with retail users holding 20.95% and 14.61% respectively, compared to institutions' 22.23% and 10.39%.” In recent months, meme tokens of the Ethereum and Solana ecosystem have gained prominence as a way to bet on the growth of a blockchain. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/06/06/meme-coin-institutional-holdings-surged-since-january-led-by-doge-shib-pepe/

2024-06-06 11:00

The all-cash deal is valued at $200 million and is expected to close in the first half of 2025. Trading platform Robinhood has agreed to buy U.K.-based crypto exchange Bitstamp for $200 million in cash. U.K.-based Bitstamp was founded in 2011 and is one of the largest crypto exchanges in Europe. The acquisition is hoped to allow Robinhood to expand its crypto presence globally and attract institutional clientele. Trading platform Robinhood (HOOD) has agreed to acquire crypto exchange Bitstamp as it looks to expand its crypto presence globally and attract institutional clients through new product offerings, the company announced Tuesday. The $200 million all-cash deal is expected to close in the first half of 2025, according to the press release. Barclays Capital and Galaxy Digital advised Robinhood and Bitstamp on the sale, the firms said. “The acquisition of Bitstamp is a major step in growing our crypto business," said Johann Kerbrat, general manager of Robinhood Crypto "Bitstamp’s highly trusted and long standing global exchange has shown resilience through market cycles … Through this strategic combination, we are better positioned to expand our footprint outside of the U.S. and welcome institutional customers to Robinhood.” Bitstamp is a U.K.-based crypto exchange that was founded in 2011 and quickly became one of the largest crypto exchanges in Europe. It currently offers spot trading of over 85 cryptocurrencies as well as other crypto products including institutional lending and staking, among others. It is one of the most regulated on the market, holding more than 50 licenses and registrations globally, according to the release. It also undergoes regular audits by a global Big Four accounting firm. Robinhood started offering crypto trading to clients in the European Union in December. “Bringing Bitstamp's platform and expertise into Robinhood’s ecosystem will give users an enhanced trading experience with a continuing commitment to compliance, security, and customer-centricity,” said JB Graftieaux, CEO of Bitstamp, who along with the rest of the leadership team will remain in place following the sale. The deal could ramp up the competition in the crypto exchange market as Robinhood's international expansion may take more market share from the likes of Coinbase (COIN), which is also pushing to grow outside of North America. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/06/06/robinhood-to-buy-crypto-exchange-bitstamp-in-effort-to-expand-outside-the-us/

2024-06-05 20:45

One market observer noted "very concentrated call buying" looking to profit from a rally to between $74,000 and $80,000 by the end of this month. Options trading desks saw heavy buying activity for BTC calls with June expiry. BTC "ready to squeeze higher" with some $1.5 billion worth of shorts concentrated around the $72,000 that can be liquidated, Matrixport noted. Bitcoin (BTC) options traders are increasingly positioning for the asset to hit fresh record prices this month, market data suggests. "Our desk saw strong bullish follow-through with significant call buying for June expiries, indicating positioning in the options market for a decisive break of 74,000 all-time-highs this month," digital asset hedge fund QCP said in a Wednesday market update. Options are derivative contracts that give buyers the right to buy or sell an asset at a certain price before or at a predetermined date when the contract expires. If the underlying asset doesn't reach the strike price (out of money), the option will expire worthless. Purchasing calls implies a bullish outlook for an asset's price, while put option buyers are bearish. "Options flow was clearly bullish today with big sizes on long BTC OTM [out-of-money] call spreads in end June, and to a lower extent end July," institutional crypto derivatives trading network Paradigm said in a Telegram broadcast. Joshua Lim, co-founder of crypto derivatives principal trading firm Arbelos Markets, noted "very concentrated call buying" on Tuesday with about 1100 contracts purchased of June 28 expiration call spreads in $74,000-$80,000 strikes, representing around $80 million notional demand. A call spread is an options trading strategy in which buys of call options at a lower strike price and are made alongside sales of the same amount of calls at a higher strike price with the same expiry, aiming to profit from a limited price increase. Bitcoin has spent almost three months consolidating since notching an all-time high slightly below $74,000 in mid-March. After plummeting briefly below $57,000 in early May, it saw a steady recovery, now changing hands at around $71,000, only a few percentage points from new record prices. Crypto investment services firm Matrixport said in a Wednesday X post that bitcoin "appears to be ready to squeeze higher," supported by heavy inflows to U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds and rising open interest in the futures market. A surge above the $72,000 level could induce a short squeeze, Matrixport noted, as there's some $1.5 billion worth of leveraged futures contracts betting on lower prices concentrated around that range that could be liquidated, exacerbating the move higher. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/06/05/bitcoin-options-traders-anticipate-imminent-breakout-above-74k-to-new-record-prices/

2024-06-05 20:33

We take a look at what unfolded after Matter Labs’ planned to trademark the term “ZK.” Ethereum's layer-2 teams are butting heads once again. This time, major figures in the space are condemning Matter Labs, the creator of zkSync, over its decision to trademark the acronym "ZK," which is shorthand for "zero-knowledge” cryptography, the core technology underlying zkSync and a plethora of other blockchain projects. Matter Labs claimed it made the move to protect users. Leaders from Polygon and Starkware–competitors in the layer-2 space–disagreed, arguing that trademarking public goods does not serve the interests of the Ethereum ecosystem. In this week's newsletter, we'll recap this latest episode in the layer-2 saga and a slate of other industry updates that you won't want to miss. ALSO: Consensus 2024 wrap up. Starkware, the Ethereum layer-2 team, unveils its plan to start scaling the Bitcoin blockchain, too. Avail, the data availability spinoff from Polygon, shares it has raised $43 million in a Series A fuding round. The team behind Bitcoin layer-2 network Ark has created a new company that will focus on faster and cheaper Bitcoin transactions, putting it head-to-head with the Lightning Network. Network news ZK Trademark Filing Rile Layer 2 Teams: Matter Labs, the main development firm behind the zkSync Era blockchain, received major blowback from fellow Ethereum layer-2 teams after it unveiled plans to trademark the term "ZK." The week-long clash resulted in Matter Labs withdrawing its trademark application, which it initially said was necessary to protect the Ethereum community against similarly-named projects and token tickers. ZK, or zero-knowledge, is a type of cryptography used by certain layer-2 rollups and other blockchain projects to quickly prove that transaction details are true while keeping other details private. The tech is closely associated with attempts to scale the Ethereum blockchain. Layer-2 networks like Polygon, StarkNet and zkSync all use ZK proofs to help provide users with quicker and cheaper transactions. Matter Labs’ move to trademark ZK came after a tiff with Polyhedra, a blockchain project that used "ZK" as the ticker for its token. Matter Labs has been preparing for its own highly-anticipated token airdrop and planned to take the "ZK" ticker for itself. (Polyhedra ultimately decided to rebrand its token to "ZKJ," according to reporting from The Block.) When Matter Labs initially revealed its plan to trademark ZK, it ignited an ecosystem-wide outcry. Given that ZK technology—and the term itself—are used by many teams across the industry, the trademark filing was seen as an attempt by a single company to seize ownership over a "public good." More broadly, this was viewed as an attack on crypto's open-source and collaborative ethos. In a statement shared with CoinDesk, StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson called the move “an absurd IP-grab.” Polygon Chief Legal Officer Rebecca Rettig wrote on X that trademarking a term is to “protect a company’s brand” rather than the wider crypto community. This isn’t the first time that Matter Labs has found itself in hot water with its competitors. In August 2023, the Polygon team went on a media blitz with the claim that Matter Labs had copied its Plonky-2 software system without proper attribution. Leaders from other teams, like Starkware, also weighed in at the time, expressing their disappointment with Matter Labs. (Gluchowski denied the claims of copying but said his team “could have done better” by providing clearer attribution to other teams' open-source code.) Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal seemed to reference the debacle when he weighed in on the earlier dispute, saying in a statement last week that "zkSync has repeatedly acted contrary to the Web3 ethos, despite consistently signaling those same values. We believe that if we do not publicly address this behavior, it will persist and potentially worsen." Alex Gluchowski, the CEO of Matter Labs, initially dismissed the complaints, sharing that his intention with the trademark application was to protect users and adding that Matter Labs would eventually move to share the trademark with a yet-to-exist consortium of ecosystem stakeholders. Three days later, however, Matter Labs opted to walk back on its trademark efforts entirely. Consensus 2024 Debrief: Last week, CoinDesk’s 10th annual Consensus festival took place in Austin, Texas, and what a whirlwind it was! This year, the conference had a pronounced focus on policy and regulation. Last month's surprise ether (ETH) ETF approval, the bipartisan vote to repeal the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) crypto accounting policy (SAB121), and the wider Democratic softening towards crypto in the past few weeks were on everyone's minds. Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stopped by to share his thoughts on crypto policy, and he also gave his opinion on former President Donald J. Trump’s guilty verdict in his hush-money trial. Another trend at the center of Consensus was AI and its intersection with Blockchain. Consensus even dedicated an entire day (May 31) to AI discussions on the Gen C Stage. And finally, vibe checks were all around, with many still figuring out if crypto is on the cusp of another bear or bull run. The takeaway: it isn’t exactly clear. Protocol Village Top picks of the past week from our Protocol Village column, highlighting key blockchain tech upgrades and news. Bitcoin Gets More Scaling Bitcoin scaling continues to be a major focus for the oldest blockchain ecosystem, and now the team behind Bitcoin layer-2 protocol Ark has created a new company that will focus on cheap and fast payments. Ark Labs, the new company, will compete with Bitcoin's Lightning Network with its own solution for scaling the blockchain's transaction capacity. The company shared that it will pursue scalability by developing “an open implementation of the Ark Protocol” and “building services for users,” CoinDesk’s Jamie Crawley writes. The open implementation of Ark is expected to happen in 2024. Read the full post by Jamie Crawley here Money Center Fundraisings Avail, which spun out of Polygon and is known for its data availability solution, shared that they have raised $43 million in a seed round. The fresh round of capital will go towards building out its core products. Stablecoin protocol El Dorado completed a $3 million seed round to build a crypto payments "superapp" for users in Latin America. Connext has rebranded to Everclear to build a Clearing Layer for Web3, solving liquidity fragmentation for modular blockchains. Everclear secured $5 million from Pantera Capital and launched its testnet to reduce liquidity management costs across chains. According to Everclear, their system "can reduce the cost and complexity of solving and liquidity management across chains by as much as 90%." API3 has completed a strategic funding round led by DWF Labs, raising $4 million. The funding will enhance liquidity and support API3’s growth strategy, according to the company. API3’s Total Value Secured (TVS) has increased significantly to over $1 billion, the team says, as it has integrated with new chains like Optimism Superchain and Worldcoin. SCRYPT, a provider of crypto asset financial services, has closed a $5 million strategic funding round led by Braza Bank. This funding will support SCRYPT’s expansion in LATAM and enhance its product offerings. Deals and grants Polygon Labs, the development firm behind Polygon, announced that it has acquired Toposware, a blockchain engineering firm focused on zero-knowledge technology. Sources close to the deal told CoinDesk that the acquisition was in the range of $30 million to $50. Mantle EcoFund, with a capital pool of $200M, deployed $5M in its second capital call. "Seven Mantle Ecosystem SocialFi and gaming projects have received fresh funding: MetaCene, Blade Games, Co-Museum, Fingerlabs, L3E7, and DreamOS," said Mantle. "The newly inducted projects within Mantle EcoFund portfolio underscore Mantle’s belief in the transformative power of SocialFi and gaming applications to onboard the next billion users to web3." Data and Tokens Bitcoin-Based Meme Coin DOG Rockets Toward $1B Market Cap Uniswap Postpones Protocol Upgrade Vote; UNI Tumbles 9% Bitcoin Miner Core Scientific Surges After AI Deal, Report of Over $1B Buyout Offer From CoreWeave DWF Labs to Purchase $12M FLOKI From Project Treasury, Open Market Trump Conviction Barely Dents His Odds of Winning Election: Prediction Markets Regulatory and Policy India Springs Election Surprise, Sends Equity Market Crashing With Uncertain Implications for Crypto Epoch Times CFO Charged With $67M Fraud Scheme Involving Crypto Platform Former Binance CEO CZ Begins 4-Month Prison Sentence in California Calendar June 11-13: Apex, the XRP Ledger Developer Summit, Amsterdam. July 8-11: EthCC, Brussels. July 25-27: Bitcoin 2024, Nashville. Aug. 19-21: Web3 Summit, Berlin. Sept. 19-21: Solana Breakpoint, Singapore. Sept. 1-7: Korea Blockchain Week, Seoul. Sept. 30-Oct. 2: Messari Mainnet, New York. Oct. 9-11: Permissionless, Salt Lake City. Oct. 21-22: Cosmoverse, Dubai. Oct. 23-24: Cardano Summit, Dubai. Oct. 30-31: Chainlink SmartCon, Hong Kong Nov 12-14: Devcon 7, Bangkok. Nov. 20-21: North American Blockchain Summit, Dallas. Feb. 19-20, 2025: ConsensusHK, Hong Kong. https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/06/05/the-protocol-another-episode-in-the-layer-2-teams-drama/