Mediaboss Marketing

What happened

Cryptocurrencies are having a banner week, despite chaos in the broader market, especially in the banking sector, which is likely due to the fact that many see cryptocurrencies as an alternative to the traditional banking system.

Over the last week, the price of the world's largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC 0.28%), traded roughly 25% higher as of 1:35 p.m. ET Thursday, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Meanwhile, the price of the world's second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum (ETH -0.57%), traded roughly 17% higher, and the price of Bitcoin Cash (BCH -0.24%) was up more than 14%.

Bitcoin was really invented in the wake of the Great Recession. People didn't trust the mainstream financial system or the government for that matter, which led to the creation of decentralized blockchain technology and the cryptocurrencies that trade on these networks.

Image source: Getty Images.

Three banks -- Silvergate Capital,SVB Financial's Silicon Valley Bank, andSignature Bank -- collapsed over the last week. Also, Swiss bank Credit Suissecame under intense selling pressure this week and had to borrow 50 billion Swiss Francs from Switzerland's central bank to shore up liquidity.

I think this week reminded people of why Bitcoin got started in the first place. However, Silvergate and Signature ran real-time payment platforms used mainly by crypto exchanges and other crypto clients. Meanwhile, SVB had banked many crypto start-ups.

I am surprised cryptocurrencies have fared so well given everything that has happened. For one, the collapse of Silvergate and the closure of Signature shutters two of the main fiat on-and-off rails that crypto firms were using to swap dollars for cryptocurrencies and vice versa, which raises liquidity concerns. Additionally, media reports suggest that any potential buyer of Signature must agree to forgo the bank's crypto business.

This also suggests that banking regulators are looking to drive crypto away from the traditional banking system. Former Sen. Barney Frank, who authored critical banking regulation following the Great Recession known as Dodd-Frank and also sat on Signature's board of directors, has now repeatedly said he thinks the closure of Signature was related to "a very strong anti-crypto message."

Bitcoin also seems to be holding up despite the fact that the European Central Bank raised interest rates by a half-point this morning. Rising rates crushed cryptocurrencies all throughout 2022 and the Federal Reserve will convene next week to discuss whether or not the agency should keep raising interest rates in the U.S.

Bitcoin and crypto price action are very, very tough to predict, so while I'm surprised to see crypto investors shaking off all of the bad news this week, never say never in this sector. Additionally, I do think all of the banking issues are helping to drive Bitcoin higher.

For now, I'd keep an eye on how the Fed moves next week. A rate hike will likely not be so favorable for crypto while no rate hike could be very positive. Ultimately, I continue to like Bitcoin and Ethereum and think they will be here for the long haul.

SVB Financial provides credit and banking services to The Motley Fool. Bram Berkowitz has positions in Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, and SVB Financial. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Read more from the original source:

Why Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash Are Surging This Week - The Motley Fool

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were little changed Thursday, having consolidated gains from one of the best stretches for digital assets in more than two years amid hopes of more accommodative monetary policy from the Federal Reserve.

The price of Bitcoin has risen less than 1% over the past 24 hours to above $24,800. Bitcoin is still up almost 50% so far this yearhaving soared from a bearish dip after falling below $20,000 last weekbut it has fallen back from a peak above $26,000 on Tuesday, which marked the highest levels since the crypto crash accelerated last June.

We still see a tug-of-war near $25,000, said Alex Kuptsikevich, an analyst at broker FxPro. Prices are returning under the 200-week average, failing to go immediately higher. Technically, an important signal of a return to a long-term bullish trend would be a consolidation above $25,000 at the end of the week. Nevertheless, keeping the price above $20,000 and the 200-day average looks like a sufficient condition that Bitcoin is not ready to decline sharply further and remains interesting for buying on declines.

Crypto prices have jumped higher amid a crisis of confidence across the U.S. banking sector. While the failures of Silvergate Capital, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature Bank since last week have important implications for the digital asset industry and functioning of crypto markets, traders have turned bullish for a different reason.

The meltdown of Silicon Valley Bank in particularthe biggest banking collapse since the 2008-2009 financial crisishas spurred bets that the Fed will not raise interest rates in the coming months as much as once expected. Higher rates have hammered Bitcoin prices over the past year as the Fed has tried to get decades-high inflation under control with tighter financial conditions. But recent stresses on banks, an unintended consequence of the rate environment, has fueled speculation of a more careful Fed.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

A cap on rates, and even the prospect of rate cuts this year, would be a major tailwind for Bitcoin, because higher rates dampen demand for riskier bets like cryptos. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 have slid amid banking woeswith Bitcoin bucking its correlation to the stock marketthe tech stock-heavy Nasdaq, which is similarly sensitive to rate expectation, has been more resilient.

Nevertheless, markets broadly sold off Wednesday amid fears that the U.S. banking panic could go global, with shares in Swiss bank Credit Suisse (ticker: CS) selling off dramatically. Bitcoin wasnt able to escape the short-term selling pressure, hence the move lower through Wednesday and into Thursday.

Bitcoin weakened as chaos across Wall Street saw another banking crisis trigger another wave of panic-selling of risky assets. Credit Suisse is a bigger story than SVB and this has Wall Street extremely nervous, said Edward Moya, an analyst at broker Oanda. Banking turmoil could ultimately prove to be rather bullish for Bitcoin, but for now crypto weakness is justified.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

In focus ahead of the next Fed decision on rates due next week, after the central banks policy-setting committee meets March 21-22, are any signs of more stress in the banking system as well as economic data that add color to the inflation picture.

Beyond Bitcoin, Ether the second-largest cryptolost 1% to above $1,650. Smaller cryptos, or altcoins, were weaker, with Cardano and Polygon losing 3%. Memecoins were also in the red, with Dogecoin down 3% and Shiba Inu shedding 5%.

Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@barrons.com

Read the original post:

Best of Bitcoins Latest Rally Is Over. Watch This Key Level for the Next Move. - Barron's

In episode 11 of Hashing It Out, Cointelegraphs Elisha Owusu Akyaw speaks to Steven McClurg, the chief investment officer of Valkyrie Investments, about the state of Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the way forward.

Regulators in the United States have mounted stiff opposition against listing Bitcoin spot ETFs even though Canadian and European regulators have given the green light. McClurg points out that even for the Canadian and European markets, these approvals also took a long time. According to McClurg, the two biggest issues U.S. regulators have with Bitcoin spot ETFs are custody and market manipulation.

The chief investment officer believes that the custody issue would have largely been dealt with if not for the FTX fiasco, which caused regulators to take a step back to scrutinize whether custodians are safe before approving more Bitcoin investment products. On the second issue of market manipulation, McClurg believes that similar products in Canada have made a case for why such concerns are invalid.

Locally, companies like Valkyrie Investments are actively working with regulators to answer major questions surrounding the safety of Bitcoin Spot ETFs. McClurg says Valkyrie has been educating regulators on how custody works and sharing notes on due diligence done by the company on various custodians, which picked up red flags in some of the companies that went bust last year.

According to McClurg, despite the lack of United States-based Bitcoin spot ETFs, people in the country can have exposure to spot ETFs from Canada through brokerages.

Related: Bitcoins 2023 price action driven by the desire to regain losses, according to professional trader

He also points out that some lawmakers, especially in the House of Representatives, have been receptive to making laws that make it easier to launch Bitcoin spot ETFs. Nevertheless, McClurg maintains a pessimistic outlook on how soon consumers can access spot ETFs from the United States.

Other topics discussed include:

Listen to the full discussion about Bitcoin ETFs on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcastsor TuneIn. You can also check out Cointelegraphs complete catalog of informative podcasts on the Cointelegraph Podcasts page.

Read the rest here:

FTX fiasco set back the approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs: Valkyrie investment chief - Cointelegraph

Three banks have failed in less than a week. U.S. government officials have stepped up to backstop losses, in a bid to prevent further panic. There are genuine concerns about whether that was the right move effectively bailing out two poorly run institutions facing highly irregular problems and letting the third collapse as well as the risk that more banks will fail.

So should you take your money out of your bank and keep it safe under the mattress or in bitcoin? The answer is, if youre anything like me, whatever money you have in a checking account is insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) up to $250,000. So, no, its improbable that JPMorgan Chase will rug you.

This article is excerpted from The Node, CoinDesk's daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news. You can subscribe to get the full newsletter here.

Still, many are moving their money into crypto, like Tatiana Koffman, who described the move Monday in CoinDesk as an act of protest. Putting aside stablecoins, crypto is volatile, making these assets less than ideal currencies if you want to preserve your wealth. But they offer root ownership meaning no one can make a run for your deposits.

Bitcoin, as many have already said, was born out of an earlier banking crisis. The blockchains very first block contained a message about bailouts. It was designed to disintermediate third parties from internet money by making people responsible for their own keys, in contrast to the highly intertwined private banking sector and public sector.

President Joe Biden has said U.S. taxpayers will not foot the bill for the bailout, and that unlike in 2008 the architects of this financial crash will not benefit. There are enough responsible actors here to play the blame game, but if youre like Tatiana the issue is The System itself.

SVB essentially took a bet that interest rates would stay near zero forever. Over the past couple of years, it took in deposits from a tech industry that was booming, in part, due to historically low rates that made venture capital financing worth the risk for many investors. In an effort to juice as much yield as possible from those deposits, SVB put a majority of its money into long-term, fixed-rate interest investments.

The Federal Reserve, as my colleague David Z. Morris wrote, essentially created the foundation for a tech hype cycle through financial engineering to stimulate the economy, and then threw the frying pan into ice water when things got too hot. The recent interest rate rises were not necessarily unpredictable, but the Feds inconsistent messaging saying rate hikes were unthinkable until they werent did not help the situation.

Venture capitalists like Peter Thiel helped accelerate SVBs outsized growth, and its quickened collapse. Thiel is reportedly a believer in Girardian mimicry, which explains why groups of humans make predictable if irrational decisions and our relentless pursuit of scapegoats. Tech leaders have said SVB grew out of a feedback loop that made it the place for startups to bank.

Also, a similar social dynamic, fueled by chat groups and social media, kicked in on the way down. Some even put sometimes-CoinDesk author Byrne Hobart at the center of things, because he wrote a supposedly well-read blog last month saying SVB was effectively insolvent. And so depositors like Roku, which left some $487 million uninsured at SVB, are not blameless.

Politicians, who like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are using the situation to justify their pet causes, once promised us no more bailouts, yet wrote the rules that allowed SVB to use a little accounting magic and hide billions in unrealized losses. Some, like former Rep. Barney Frank said Signature Bank, where he is now a board member, was attacked for political reasons because it dealt with crypto.

When Frank was in Congress he co-sponsored the legislation ultimately enacted as the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, stymied bank failures. Signature had reportedly experienced the worst of its bank run and could have survived without government intervention, Frank said. If moral hazard is the argument that people will engage in riskier behavior if protected from the consequences of their actions, then we need a new term for Franks claims.

There were sound arguments for stepping in and preventing a cataclysmic blow to the valuable U.S. tech industry. Taxpayer money isnt being used (at least not directly), deposits for growing businesses are safe, shareholders and bondholders arent being bailed out and even the New York Times is calling for clawbacks of SVB executives compensation and stock sales.

And, yes, there are solid arguments in favor of having let Silicon Valley Bank and Signature run their course. Expected losses were almost certainly exaggerated. A sound startup could have raised equity and banked elsewhere, and it would have put the fear of God back into the supposedly capitalistic U.S. economy.

But not bailing SVB and Signature out was never an option. Bank failures today are exceedingly rare and would cause a tremendous amount of panic, such as how the collapse of Silvergate Bank essentially a free-floating entity detached from the wider economy led here. And because SVB and Signature rode both the wave of cheap money created by Fed policy up and down, how separate can private and public interests really be?

So, if the U.S. government is officially in the business of bailing out banks, should you keep your money at a bank?

Link:

Should I Keep My Money in Bitcoin or a Bank? - CoinDesk

March 14 (Reuters) - Imagine digitally inscribing 3D images of objects such as multi-colored spheres onto a tiny fragment of bitcoin. Then imagine selling them for $16.5 million.

Just when you thought crypto couldn't get any stranger, bitcoin accidentally births a new breed of NFTs.

The new entrants have materialized in 2023 following bitcoin network upgrades that enabled each satoshi - the smallest denomination of bitcoin, or one hundred millionth - to store a few megabytes of data, from text and images to audio and video.

The data storage was an unintended consequence of the upgrades. Now crypto enthusiasts have embedded a total of 385,000 "inscriptions" known as Ordinals on bitcoin since January, including more than 200,000 image files and over 150,000 text ones, according to Glassnode Market Intelligence.

"I think this is really the start of a fundamental shift in what you can do with bitcoin," said Alex Miller, CEO at bitcoin developer network Hiro.

The colored balls form part of TwelveFold, a collection of 300 images of 3D objects rendered in a square grid, from NFT developers Yuga Labs, best known for its Bored Ape Yacht Club. It calls the set "a visual allegory" for data on blockchain.

They became a lucrative allegory this month when the company auctioned 288 of them off for $16.5 million, according to data from research firm Delphi Digital.

Other top-selling Ordinals - named after the software protocol that facilitates inscription - include JPEGs of rocks and shadowy crowned figures which have sold for $213,845 and $273,010 respectively, according to Galaxy Digital Research.

Although the market for bitcoin NFTs has only been going since January, Galaxy estimates it could be worth $4.5 billion by 2025, basing its bullish forecast on factors such as the growth of the more established Ethereum NFT market and the fact that bitcoin is by far the most popular cryptocurrency.

Caveat emptor, though: Little can be accurately foreseen in the highly unpredictable market for non-fungible tokens, it would appear.

Overall sales of NFTs - excluding Ordinals - stood at about $1 billion last month, according to CryptoSlam data, a recovery from the $324 million in November but still a fraction of the roughly $5 billion seen last January and $2.7 billion in May.

Nonetheless, bitcoin NFTs have built up a head of steam in a short space of time. Satoshis inscribed with NFTs are involved in about 7% of the total number of bitcoin blockchain transactions, according to Glassnode data.

One of the biggest challenges for this new class of NFTs is the dearth of a user-friendly marketplaces, with early transactions taking place over-the-counter on shared online spreadsheets, according to market players.

This lack of infrastructure is a definite barrier to entry, Delphi Digital said.

Not everyone is happy about this surge of activity, especially some bitcoin purists who believe the cryptocurrency should solely be used for payments.

The average fee to make a bitcoin transaction, measured over a 7-day period, has spiked to $1.981, its highest since November, as Ordinals trading surged compared with under $1 at the start of February, according to data from Blockchain.com.

"We want transactions to remain as inexpensive as possible so people around the world can run businesses and send money," said Cory Klippsten, CEO of bitcoin-focused financial services firm Swan Bitcoin, who sees problems in "having it priced out through this non-monetary use case that's kind of frivolous".

Some critics say Ordinals are also clogging up the network; the 7-day average of time to confirm bitcoin transactions spiked to over 186 minutes in late February, its highest since November's bitcoin selloff, according to Blockchain.com.

That's since dropped to over 124 minutes, though that's still significantly longer than the range of 12.8 to 35 minutes transaction time in January and February.

"Ordinals have brought some more eyes to the network," said Brendon Sedo, a developer at the Core DAO blockchain. "But NFTs on bitcoin are a distraction from the network's core purpose, which is to serve as a permissionless network that is globally available, 24/7, and uncensorable."

Reporting by Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Pravin Char

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

Go here to read the rest:

Cryptoverse: New bitcoin NFTs on a multi-million roll - Reuters