Welcome to the Daily Crypto News: A complete News Review, Coin Calendar and Analysis. Enjoy!
🗞 Market Wrap: Bitcoin Sits at $22.8K While $10B Locked in Top 5 DeFi Protocols
Bitcoin’s price has hung around $22,400-$22,800 after Thursday’s momentous spot volume day while brand-name DeFi protocols have the lion’s share of the market for locked crypto.
Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $22,783 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 0.68% over the previous 24 hours.
Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $22,357-$23,261 (CoinDesk 20)
BTC above its 10-hour and 50-hour moving average on the hourly chart, a bullish signal for market technicians.
Thursday was the highest-volume day in 2020 for the eight exchanges tracked by the CoinDesk 20, with over $4.7 billion in volume. That day Coinbase led the way with $1.6 billion in volume, significant given Friday’s volume tally for the eight exchanges as of press time was only $1.7 billion.
In the derivatives market, open interest and volume have surged on futures venue CME, well-known as an institutional tool for hedging out traditional commodities as well as bitcoin.
Just five protocols have $10 billion locked in DeFi
Five brand-name protocols – stablecoin Maker, wrapped bitcoin (WBTC), lenders Compound and Aave along with decentralized exchange Uniswap – make up $10.5 billion of decentralized finance’s (DeFi) $16 billion total locked, according to DeFi Pulse.
🗞 How to Buy Shares in Coinbase Before Its IPO
FTX launched a pre-IPO market for Airbnb ahead of its release. And it appears that the crypto exchange is about to do the same for Coinbase.
FTX is working on a contract to trade tokenized shares in Coinbase - before it debuts on the stock market.
But no confirmation when, or even if, it'll launch.
Based on FTX's previous contracts, you'd trade it for USDC.
But while public investors must wait until Coinbase hashes out the details with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, crypto exchange FTX has reportedly jumped the gun, and may soon let its customers in on a pre-listing futures contract market for shares in Coinbase, FTX’s CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, reportedly told Coindesk.
Bankman-Fried is reportedly working with CM-Equity, the German capital markets firm FTX partnered with when it launched tokenized stock markets in October, to work out whether the market would be compliant. Decrypt has reached out to Bankman-Fried to confirm these claims but received no response by time of publication.
Coinbase raised $547.3 million in funding since it was founded in 2012, according to CrunchBase data. Crypto market analysis firm Messari valued the exchange at $28 billion. In July, Coinbase disclosed that it has 35 million customers.
FTX launched a similar pre-IPO market for Airbnb ahead of its launch on December 10. When Airbnb’s IPO launched, shares more than doubled in price.
🗞 US Treasury to Apply Bank Secrecy Act Rules to Crypto Wallets
FinCEN, a bureau of the US Treasury, has proposed requiring banks and money service businesses to record transactions to private cryptocurrency wallets.
FinCEN, part of the US Treasury Department, has issued proposed rules for unhosted cryptocurrency wallets.
These rules would require money service businesses to report certain crypto transactions to such wallets to FinCEN.
According to FinCEN, the rules are designed to combat illicit activity.
After weeks of speculation that the Treasury Department was working on regulations that would affect crypto wallets, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) today issued proposed rules that would "require banks and money service businesses ('MSBs') to submit reports, keep records, and verify the identity of customers" who make crypto transactions into unhosted (read: private) wallets.
The new rules, which have gone out for public comment until January 4, 2021, propose that "convertible virtual currency" and "legal tender digital assets" be classified as "monetary instruments" and are therefore subject to the requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).
"Given these barriers, we're likely to see fewer transactions from crypto financial institutions to self-hosted wallets. This would effectively create a walled garden for crypto financial services in the U.S., cutting us off from innovation happening in the rest of the world."
🗞 On-Chain Data Suggests More Institutions Are Buying Bitcoin Over the Counter
Despite bitcoin trading near all-time highs, more institutions continue to buy bitcoin, and they’re using over-the-counter (OTC) trading firms to keep their purchases from impacting the overall market.
Unlike retail investors or smaller institutions that use crypto exchanges, large institutions usually trade bitcoin (BTC, +2.75%) through the OTC market, noted John Todaro, director of institutional research at cryptocurrency analysis firm TradeBlock. That way, their transactions won’t move prices the way they would had the investors used even the largest centralized exchanges.
Both MicroStrategy and British investment firm Ruffer have revealed that their purchases of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoin were facilitated by Coinbase.
Another metric, the fund flow ratio for all exchanges, has gone down since the market sell-off in March. This is the ratio of network transaction volume of exchanges compared to the entire cryptocurrency transferred on the network. A lower number means fewer transactions that are done on exchanges and are instead conducted outside exchanges such as over-the-counter.
The third metric, the total amount of bitcoin transferred on the blockchain, has continued growing. This, coupled with the decreased fund flow ratio, indicates that potential massive OTC deals from the likes of institutions are “ongoing,” Ki said.
🗞 Daily Crypto Calendar, December, 19th💰
Blockstack (STX)
Blockstack will be participating in LETCON's Zubi Hackathon.
Effect.AI (EFX)
First fee distribution to the EffectDAO members (aka the Guardians).
The Graph (GRT)
"Alex '@KamiSawZe' Florez and Joe '@TheVisionEx' Madding are back streaming The Sandbox gameplay Saturday, Dec 19 - 18:00 - 19:00 GMT..."
SAND (SAND)
"#Swipe Slate cards will be increasing the requirement of $SXP staked from 30,000 to 100,000 $SXP required to receive the Slate card and..."
IQeon (IQN)
The listing will take place during the next week, stay tuned!
Benchmark Protocol (MARK)
"Join the Benchmark Team for our Second AMA with @VenusQueen19 on Saturday 12/19 at 10 AM PST..."
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