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Bull Market Not Over – Galaxy |
The bitcoin (BTC) bull market has further to run, and the world's largest cryptocurrency is expected to punch through the $100,000 level in the near term, Galaxy Research said in a note on Tuesday.
Galaxy said bitcoin will continue to rise for several reasons. Increasing institutional and corporate adoption, the potential for the creation of bitcoin nation-state reserves, and a new pro-crypto U.S. administration all point to a move higher in the near and medium term, the report said. It may not be all plain sailing, as "there could even be some twilight regulatory or law enforcement actions from the outgoing Biden administration that jitter markets," wrote Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy. Still, the bitcoin setup over the next two years "appears unique and bullish," the analyst wrote. The options market positioning is also bullish, the report noted.
The launch of bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) options could result in greater liquidity and potentially lower volatility, Galaxy said. This could entice larger institutions to enter the market while spurring retail demand.
Bitcoin was trading about 2.8% higher at around $94,600 at publication time, while the broader digital assets index, CoinDesk20 (CD 20), was up more than 3%. |
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Tether Drops Euro Stablecoin |
Stablecoin issuing giant Tether is closing down its euro stablecoin, EURT. "After careful consideration, we have made the decision to discontinue support for EUR₮," the firm said in a press release on Wednesday. Users will be able to redeem tokens until Nov. 27, 2025, the post added. The decision comes as digital asset businesses operating in the EU are in crunch time before region-wide regulations, known as MiCA, enter into full force by the end of this year.
MiCA requires stablecoin issuers to get compliant or potentially retreat from the market of 450 million consumers. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has been a vocal critic of the new rules and the company has not obtained the necessary Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license to operate in the EU. Meanwhile, rival issuer Circle, the company behind the $36 billion market cap USDC, said it fulfilled the requirements to operate in the region. EURT didn't attract considerable demand in the euro stablecoin market. It only has a $27 million market capitalization, per CoinGecko data, lagging behind Circle's EURC $90 million and Stasis Euro's $130 million. In comparison, Tether's flagship stablecoin USDT has a $132 billion market capitalization.
Tether recently invested in Netherlands-based stablecoin issuer Quantoz and also launched a tokenization platform, Hadron, that aims to support smaller, MiCA-compliant stablecoin companies to issue tokens.
"At this time we will be focusing our support on new ventures such as the launch of Quantoz Payments’ revolutionary MiCAR-compliant stablecoins, EURQ, and USDQ which will be powered by Tether’s advanced technology solution, Hadron by Tether," the firm said in a statement. |
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Bitcoin miner IREN (IREN) rose nearly 30% on Wednesday after executives said the company had received interest from an artificial intelligence (AI) firm and mentioned a potential dividend in BTC during an earnings conference call.
The Sydney-based company has been approached by a hyperscaler firm (large cloud service provider) for potentially hosting computing infrastructure at IREN's Sweetwater mining site in Texas, co-CEO and co-founder Daniel Roberts said on the call. "Two hours ago, we got an email from a trillion-dollar hyperscaler that said they weren't interested in Sweetwater, and now they are," Roberts said without giving out too many details. "We will continue not to provide guidance on specific terms or timing, given the uncertainties. Given the nature that we are dealing with counterparties, it is not all within our control. However, we continue to progress negotiations with some very large counterparties and hyperscalers," he said. IREN is one of many miners attempting to diversify their revenue sources by securely hosting big tech companies' data centers for running machines to support surging demand for AI and high-performance computing (HPC). The shift started earlier this year after Bitcoin's fourth halving cut rewards by 50%, squeezing miners' profit margins. Rival Core Scientific (CORZ) started the trend by signing AI hosting deals for billions of dollars, leading to its stock price surging and others to follow suit. The mining company, formerly known as Iris Energy, appointed Morgan Stanley in July to potentially monetize its mining facilities for the AI data center market. Its share price, however, languished most of this year and underperformed peers after a short seller said one of its sites wasn't suitable for that type of work.
Comments from the conference call might have changed market perception as the stock outperformed on Wednesday. Executives also said bitcoin's surge to near-record highs may enable the company to pay a dividend. "The achievement of positive operating cash flows may support a potential for investor distribution in calendar year 2025," CFO Belinda Nucifora said.
The move would likely be seen as positive by the market, as many investors are looking to gain exposure to the surging bitcoin price. Aside from spot buying, traders are also looking to buy into the bull market through either exchange-traded funds or publicly traded firms such as MicroStrategy (MSTR) and MARA Holdings (MARA) that are purchasing bitcoin.
With IREN mining bitcoin at a significantly lower cost of about $29,000 compared with the market price of around $96,000, co-CEO Roberts said the company has opportunities to accumulate BTC at discounted prices, as opposed to other companies that pay spot prices. |
Fastex’s ftNFT YoCerebrum Awards: The ‘Oscars of Web3’ Comes to Malta Black-tie tuxedos. Elegant gowns. Spicy dance performances. A glittering awards show that celebrates creative triumphs, attracting the who’s-who of the industry. You’d be forgiven for thinking this was the Oscars or the Grammys. But the event was something else entirely: The ftNFT YoCerebrum Awards, now in its third year, and for the first time taking place in Malta. The Academy Awards honors the best in film, the Emmys honors the best in television and now the ftNFT YoCerebrum honors the best in Web3 creativity. Continue reading here. |
Deutsche Bank Invests in Partior |
Partior, a blockchain payment network backed by TradFi giants including JPMorgan (JPM), DBS (D05), and Standard Chartered (STAN), added Deutsche Bank (DBK) to its list of investors, the company said in a press release Wednesday.
The German bank joined Partior's Series B funding round as a strategic investor, taking the total raised by the payments firm in the round to $80 million, the Singapore-based company said. Adoption of blockchain technology by traditional finance firms is growing. Last week, payments giant Mastercard said it was linking up with JPMorgan for cross-border payments on the blockchain. Deutsche Bank will also join Partior's platform as a euro and U.S. dollar settlement bank. "The payments business is currently undergoing an extensive period of disruption, primarily due to the rapid advancement of technology and drive for greater financial inclusion and transparency," said Patricia Sullivan, global head of institutional cash management at Deutsche Bank, in the release. |
The Takeaway: ETH Shows Strength |
By CoinDesk's Shaurya Malwa and Omkar Godbole. The overwhelming chatter on social media, especially Crypto Twitter is that Ethereum’s ether (ETH) is dead, a narrowly moving token.
Still, the market is betting on higher ETH prices as traders pile into derivatives tied to the cryptocurrency alongside a boom in Ethereum's blob usage.
Cumulative open interest in perpetual and standard futures contracts has surged to a record 6.32 million ETH, worth over $27 billion, registering a 17% month-to-date gain, according to data source CoinGlass. An uptick in open interest alongside a price is said to validate an uptrend, and ether's price has surged 35% to $3,400 this month, matching the industry leader's bitcoin's price gain.
According to data source Velo, the gap between three-month ETH futures and spot prices, the so-called premium, has expanded to an annualized 16% on offshore exchanges Binance, OKX and Deribit. Meanwhile, the front-month premium on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has risen to 14%. That's noteworthy because an elevated premium could generate greater interest in cash and carry trades used to capture the price differential between the two markets, leading to increased inflows into the U.S.-listed spot ETH ETFs. The strategy comprises a long position in the spot ETF with a simultaneous short in the CME futures.
Activity in the ether options market listed on Deribit is also picking up, with over 2 million contracts active or open at press time, the highest since late June. In notional terms, the open interest stands at $7.33 billion, according to Deribit Metrics.
The price uptick has further driven up the value of assets locked on Ethereum-based applications to $65 billion as of Wednesday, a figure last seen in May 2022.
A major chunk of those, however, are held on three applications. Liquid staking protocol Lido holds over $32 billion in locked ether, Aave, a lending protocol, holds $26 billion in various assets, and restaking platform EigenLayer holds $14 billion.
Data shows a bump in revenue, fees, new wallets and on-chain volumes on Ethereum, with the past month showing elevated levels of activity compared to the period from May to September. (The metrics are no where close to an year-to-date peak seen in March, when interest around ETH ETFs was at a high.)
The Solana network and its applications continue to dominate DeFi activity, however, due to its broader retail appeal and cheap fees. Stablecoin data further shows that Ethereum has more USDT hosted than Tron, with $60.3 billion on Ethereum compared to $57.94 billion on Tron, for the first time since June 2022.
Among sentiment factors, president-elect Donald Trump’s victory has brought back hopes of a decentralized finance (DeFi) bull market, at least among some investors, and with it demand for ETH.
The campaign indicated a move toward reducing the regulatory burden on crypto, potentially making it easier for DeFi platforms to operate within the U.S — a promise that has spurred growth in ETH and major DeFi tokens since early November. |
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