Global investors woke up with less appetite for risk, worried about the global economy, which takes strength from index futures in US markets and also from cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin (BTC) is down 4.6% in the last 24 hours to $20,274.67, according to data from CoinGecko. Ethereum is down 6.7% to trade at $1,081.39. In Brazil, Bitcoin operates down 5.2%, quoted at R$ 104,450.37, according to the Bitcoin Portal Index (IPB). Major altcoins also show losses such as Binance Coin (-3.7%), Cardano (-6.6%), XRP (-2.4%), Solana (-8.9%), Dogecoin (-1.5%), %), Polkadot (-8%) and Avalanche (-8.7%). Shiba Inu goes against the grain and advances 8%. “Bitcoin has reached a floor, but probably not ‘the floor,’” Mark Newton, head of technical strategy at Fundstrat Global Advisors, told Bloomberg. “Bullish targets are expected to materialize near $23,300, with a high near $24,800, before prices retreat to likely lows in the last week of June.” The world’s largest Bitcoin index fund lost half of its assets under management on Friday, which may have intensified BTC’s fall on Saturday, according to CoinDesk. The Purpose Bitcoin ETF recorded an outflow of 24,510 bitcoins on Friday, the largest daily withdrawal since the fund debuted on the Canadian Stock Exchange in April 2021, according to data from Arcane Research. Digital asset investment products saw net outflows of $39 million last week, CoinShares report shows. Total assets under management fell to $36.3 billion, the lowest since February 2021.
Digital gold?
André Esteves, partner at BTG Pactual, said at the bank’s event on Tuesday (22) that many types of diversification stopped working due to high levels of global inflation. For Esteves, Bitcoin cannot be classified as digital gold. “(…) When Nasdaq made a 40% correction, Bitcoin dropped 40% and then some. In fact, there’s nothing like ‘digital gold’”, criticized Esteves.
Other highlights
Sam Bankman-Fried, the billionaire co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is handing out lines of credit as a way to avoid the contagion of the crisis faced by some companies. Crypto lending platform BlockFi, for example, has secured a $250 million revolving line of credit with FTX, according to a tweet from CEO Zac Prince on Tuesday. And last week, American exchange Voyager Digital obtained a credit of $200 million, as well as a revolving line of 15,000 bitcoins from Alameda Research, a trading company owned by Bankman-Fried. “Sam Bankman-Fried is the new John Pierpont Morgan – he is bailing out the cryptocurrency markets just as the original JP Morgan did after the 1907 crash,” Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital, said in an interview with Bloomberg. The CEO of FTX told NPR radio that his brokerage feels responsible for helping companies in the sector in times of crisis.
Yet another exchange announced restrictions on cryptocurrency withdrawals. Hong Kong-based crypto lending platform FinBlox has capped withdrawals to $500 a day or $1,500 a month. The company has as an investor the crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which is facing liquidity problems.
A big user on the Solana network, which was about to be liquidated last week, began transferring funds to mitigate risk in the Solend lending protocol, also based on the blockchain. Solend’s whale transferred $25 million of its debt to the Mango Markets platform, according to data released Tuesday.
Tether plans to launch a stablecoin pegged to the pound sterling in early July, according to The Block. Called GBPT, the stablecoin will initially be made available on the Ethereum blockchain, the company said in a statement.
Binance.USthe US arm of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, aims to raise up to $50 million at a valuation of $4.5 billion, CoinDesk reported on Tuesday.
After being acquired by Méliuz in July 2021, cryptocurrency services fintech Alter will cease operations. Alter reported that customers can transfer reais or cryptocurrencies to another account or wallet, or to a Méliuz account, free of charge. The deadline for migration ends on 6 August.
Bitcoin investment company NYDIG and Deloitte will work in partnership to help companies of different sizes incorporate digital assets into their operations. With the agreement, NYDIG will be able to offer products associated with Bitcoin in banks, consumer loyalty, among others, to clients of the consultancy, according to CoinDesk.
Twitter’s board of directors unanimously recommended that shareholders approve the proposed sale of the company to billionaire Elon Musk at a future meeting, according to a document submitted Tuesday to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Regulation, Cybersecurity and CBDCs
The market awaits the vote on the bill that regulates crypto-assets in Brazil, expected to be approved later this week. The PL’s objective is to establish legislation capable of tripling investments in the sector, said federal deputy Aureo Ribeiro (Solidariedade-RJ), author of the proposal, at a seminar promoted on Tuesday (21) by TV ConJur. Present at the event, Vanessa Butalla, executive director of Legal, Regulatory and Compliance at 2TM, which controls MB, highlights that the project can establish an “an environment of equality, which favors free competition and leaves no room for regulatory arbitrage” — that is, “service providers choosing to comply or not with the legislation”.
With an eye on regulation, Coinbase prepares its official entry into Brazil in the coming months, according to a report by Valor. With 40 employees in the country, the largest US crypto exchange is moving ahead with plans despite the layoff of 1,100 people in the US market recently. The Brazilian subsidiary intends to have 130 employees, all working from home permanently.
Binance is on track to complete its fourth day without access to a banking partner in Brazil that allows customers to withdraw or deposit in reais at the brokerage. The termination of the service, until then provided by Capitual, seemed something sudden, but it is the accumulation of a problem that had been unfolding, highlights a report from Portal do Bitcoin. As Capitual is not regulated by the Central Bank, it used the services of Acesso Bank, a regulated payments company. Binance had several ‘parent accounts’ with Capitual and Acesso, where thousands of CPFs operated, but which were not registered with the regulated institution. A procedure considered irregular, according to an official linked to the BC who asked not to be identified.
The 5th Panel of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) granted habeas corpus to Glaidson Acácio dos Santos, the “Pharaoh of Bitcoins”, in one of the four lawsuits he responded to. The ministers voted on a request made by Glaidson’s defense in relation to the action regarding the Kryptos operation, the newspaper O Globo reported.
Huobi crypto exchange filed a civil lawsuit against Chen Boliang, a former senior manager who oversaw the company’s institutional clients in Hong Kong, the Financial Times reported. He is accused of profiting $5 million from illicit trading.
In the view of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the structural flaws of cryptocurrencies undermine their suitability for a monetary system. In a report, the BIS says that monetary systems can be built around central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), with the help of programming and tokenization.
Metaverse, Games and NFTs
Socios.com, a platform that has already created fan tokens for nine soccer clubs in Brazil, now has an eye on e-sports teams in the country. According to the NeoFeed portal, the company should soon announce an agreement with a Brazilian esports team.
Brazilian startup BAYZ and The Sandbox, one of the leading metaverse platforms, announced a partnership on Tuesday (21) during the NFT.NYC event. Together, BAYZ and The Sandbox will bring entertainment brands from Brazil to the metaverse, including music, fashion, lifestyle, culture, architecture, sports, celebrities, TV and media, according to a statement from the companies to Exame.
Metaverse and web3 will be themes of a seminar promoted by Folha and Itaú Cultural on July 4th and 5th. The event will be broadcast live on the newspaper’s website and YouTube channel. The public can participate by sending questions via WhatsApp to the number (11) 99648-3478.
Singer and songwriter Nando Reis debuts in the crypto-assets market with the launch this Wednesday (22) of a digital wallet that will give access to a series of exclusive content, such as a collection of non-fungible tokens related to the musician’s career, according to Valor.
The International DigitalGroup on Tuesday presented the International Basketball Federation with the high-quality acrylic printing of the first non-fungible token sold in the organization’s history, according to Estadão.
Magic Eden, a non-fungible token marketplace on the Solana blockchainraised $130 million at a valuation of $1.6 billion — an increase of roughly tenfold since March, according to data from Avichal Garg, managing partner at Electric Capital and an investor in both rounds, cited by Bloomberg.
