2024-02-08 15:10

It's the highest price since the day after the new spot ETFs opened for trade. Bitcoin (BTC), the world's largest cryptocurrency by market value, has pushed above the $45,000 mark for the first time since the day after the spot ETFs began trading on Jan. 11. At press time, BTC was higher by 4.9% over the past 24 hours to $45,034, modestly outperforming a 4.4% rise for the broader CoinDesk 20 Index. "Breaking $45,000 allows early investors who piled on the bitcoin ETF to be almost in the money, if we continue this ascent we may even see some profit taken and could trigger a reversal where the $42,000/$40,000 level may be tested," said Laurent Ksiss, crypto ETP specialist at CEC Capital. In contrast to Kssis, LMAX Digital said in a morning note to investors that it expects to see bitcoin climb higher, possibly reaching the $50,000 level. "Technically speaking, bitcoin has broken out of a range and could be looking for a push to a fresh yearly high through $50,000." Ether (ETH) was also on the move, rising 3% to reach a two-week high after asset managers Ark Invest and 21Shares yesterday amended their joint spot ETH ETF filing. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/02/08/bitcoin-breaks-above-45k-traders-predict-a-possible-50k-push/

2024-02-08 14:30

The timing for the long-awaited Dencun upgrade, with its much-touted "proto-danksharding" feature, was announced Thursday on a call with top developers for the Ethereum blockchain. The Dencun upgrade is designed to reduce costs for layer-2 transactions and data availability on Ethereum, in the blockchain's biggest changes since April 2023. The upgrade was successfully deployed Wednesday on the third of three test networks. Ethereum developers set a target date of March 13 for its long-awaited Dencun upgrade during a bi-weekly coordinating call on Thursday, officially triggering the countdown to the blockchain's biggest changes since April 2023. The Dencun upgrade is primarily known for its "proto-danksharding" feature, which is supposed to reduce costs for transactions on auxiliary "layer-2" networks built atop Ethereum, by providing a dedicated space for data storage. The decision was communicated during the all core developers consensus layer call 127 – just one day after the upgrade was successfully added to the Holesky testnet, the third of three test networks, without any hiccups. "It's great to see years worth of effort finally being scheduled for Ethereum mainnet," said Parithosh Jayanthi, a devops engineer at the Ethereum Foundation, to CoinDesk over Telegram. The precise moment of the Dencun upgrade on the main Ethereum network – also known as a "hard fork" – will trigger when the blockchain reaches slot 8626176, occuring at 13:55 UTC on March 13. The date needs to be ratified by developers and confirmed via the open-source software platform GitHub. Dencun will enable a new type of transaction class called “proto-danksharding,” which will help reduce the costs of transactions for rollups, through the introduction of data “blobs,” a new category for storing data. Ethereum Data Availability It’s also supposed to help reduce the cost of data available on Ethereum, thus making projects like Celestia, Avail, and EigenDA more attractive. Developers have run through three tests in order to ensure that Dencun will run smoothly on mainnet, culminating in this week's deployment on the Holesky testnet. Proto-danksharding is the first iteration of a technical feature, known as “danksharding,” that developers are working towards implementing to scale the blockchain. The inked-in date for Dencun means that the upgrade will go live later than the developers had initially planned for. They originally targeted it for the end of 2023, but due to technical delays, the upgrade was pushed to early 2024. As part of the Ethereum roadmap, developers are already planning their next hard fork, Prague/Electra, which could potentially include “Verkle Trees,” a new type of data structure that should help nodes storing large amounts of data “without losing the ability to validate blocks.” https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/02/08/ethereum-developers-target-march-13-for-milestone-dencun-upgrade-on-mainnet/

2024-02-08 13:30

The appeal is a minor victory for Kwon, who initially won an appeal in November only for it to be subsequently overturned. The Montenegrin High Court decided for a second time in December that extradition requests for Do Kwon held up. Kwon's lawyer told CoinDesk last month that his client would be appealing the High Court's decision. Former CFO at Terraform Han Chang-Joon was extradited to South Korea by Montenegrin authorities on Monday. Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon has won a second appeal against the Montenegro High Court's decision to uphold extradition requests from the U.S. and South Korea. Kwon initially won an appeal in November to overturn the High Court’s decision in favor of the extradition requests. The same court then decided at the end of December that the requests held up. The Terraform Labs co-founder’s lawyer told CoinDesk last month that his client would be appealing the High Court's decision. Goran Rodic said in an interview that local courts were facing political pressure in order to push the extradition through. Kwon’s former CFO at Terraform Han Chang-Joon was extradited to South Korea by Montenegrin authorities on Monday. The latest appeal, represents a significant achievement in postponing a similar fate for Kwon. After Terraform Labs' stablecoin TerraUSD collapsed in May 2022, authorities in Kwon's native country, South Korea, and the U.S. brought criminal charges against him. He was arrested in Montenegro last year for possession of falsified official documents and sentenced to four months in prison. While Kwon is serving his sentence, Montenegrin authorities must approve his extradition and decide the destination. Read More: Terraform Labs Declares Bankruptcy in Delaware https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/02/08/do-kwon-gets-minor-relief-from-extradition-wins-second-chance-to-appeal-extradition-from-montenegro/

2024-02-08 10:11

The Securities and Exchange Commission alleges customer assets were transferred overseas before an announcement was made. Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges against former Zipmex Thailand CEO Akarlap Yimwilai. The SEC accused the exchange of misleading customers and presenting false information. Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused former Zipmex Thailand CEO Akarlap Yimwilai of corruption and deception, according to a statement on Thursday. The SEC found that customer assets held in the crypto exchange's Z Wallet were transferred into overseas digital wallets before an announcement was made regarding changes in terms and conditions. This did not correspond with the information Zipmex Thailand had supplied, the regulator said. "Therefore, it is considered that Zipmex Thailand has committed fraud by presenting false statements," the SEC said. The executive was CEO of Zipmex Thailand between August 2018 and November 2023 according to his LinkedIn profile. Zipmex Thailand is a unit of Singapore-based Zipmex, headed by Marcus Lim, and was granted approval to operate by the Ministry of Finance and SEC in 2020. Last week, the commission ordered the exchange to suspend its digital asset trading and brokerage services, and the website carries an announcement saying it and its mobile app have been disabled. The SEC also alleges that reports submitted by Zipmex Thailand were inconsistent with information it was able to ascertain. The SEC filed a complaint against the CEO with the Office of the Provincial Crime Suppression Division for it to consider taking further legal action. Determining whether or not someone has broken the law is a step that the investigative authority has to take, the SEC said. CoinDesk contacted Zipmex Thailand by email and Akarlap Yimwilai through his LinkedIn profile. Neither had responded by publication time. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/02/08/thai-sec-files-charges-against-former-zipmex-thailand-ceo/

2024-02-08 09:17

GBTC is expected to lose further funds to newly created ETFs unless there is a meaningful cut to its fees, the report said. Outflows from GBTC slowed during the fourth week following SEC approval. Still, GBTC is likely to lose more funds to newly created spot bitcoin ETFs if it doesn't cut its fees. The BlackRock and Fidelity ETFs also have an advantage over Grayscale when it comes to certain liquidity metrics linked to market breadth. There is evidence the BlackRock (BLK) and Fidelity spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) already have an advantage over Grayscale when it comes to certain liquidity metrics linked to market breadth, JPMorgan (JPM) said in a research report Wednesday. Even though outflows from Grayscale's GBTC slowed in the fourth week following approval by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the fund is expected to lose out to the newly created ETFs, and in particular to the BlackRock and Fidelity products, if it doesn't make a meaningful cut to its fees, the report said. Grayscale charges the most among spot bitcoin ETF issuers. It dropped its 2% management fee to 1.5% as part of its conversion to a spot bitcoin ETF, but is still much more expensive than rival offerings. "An additional reason beyond fees is that the BlackRock and Fidelity ETFs are already commanding an advantage vs GBTC in terms of two liquidity metrics," analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote. The first is the bank's proxy for market breadth based on the Hui-Heubel ratio. The value for GBTC is about four times higher than those of BlackRock and Fidelity ETFs, implying they "exhibit significantly more market breadth than GBTC." The second metric is based on the "average absolute deviation" of ETF closing prices from net asset value (NAV), the report said. In the last week this metric showed the "ETF price deviation from NAV of the Fidelity and BlackRock spot bitcoin ETFs approached that of the GLD Gold ETF, implying a significant improvement in liquidity, while the deviations for the GBTC ETF have remained high implying lower liquidity," the report added. Grayscale disagreed with the report's conclusion. "If we examine dollar volume traded – the most widely used metric for tracking ETF liquidity – it is clear that GBTC has been the liquidity market leader since it launched as a spot bitcoin ETF," said Louis Hsu, Grayscale's vice president of ETFs. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/02/08/blackrock-fidelity-bitcoin-etfs-have-a-liquidity-edge-over-grayscale-jpmorgan/

2024-02-07 22:53

The company, with backing from the owner of the NYSE, was introduced in 2018 with the initial goal of helping Starbucks customers buy coffee with bitcoin. Bakkt, a crypto platform introduced amid great fanfare in 2018 by the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, warned Wednesday that it might not be able to stay in business. "We might not be able to continue as a going concern," the company said in a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "We do not believe that our cash and restricted cash are sufficient to fund our operations for the 12 months following the date of" the filing. Bakkt is seeking to sell up to $150 million of securities, according to a Bakkt spokesperson, which could ease this problem. The company was set up by Intercontinental Exchange, which owns large derivatives exchanges plus the NYSE, with the initial goal of helping Starbucks customers buy coffee with bitcoin (BTC). Future U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler was its first CEO. It finally introduced a digital wallet in 2021, but that was discontinued last year. Bakkt is now focused on crypto custody and trading services. Overall efforts to use bitcoin, the asset, and Bitcoin, the blockchain, for payments have seen little success, though the Lightning Network, a layer-2 blockchain where Bitcoin transactions can be offloaded for more-efficient processing, aims to turn that into reality. Bakkt went public in 2021. Its stock trade closed Wednesday at $1.45, down from more than $40 in 2021. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/02/07/crypto-firm-bakkt-warns-it-might-not-be-able-to-remain-in-business/