Author: Coindesk
It’s a bloodbath for digital assets, with traders hitting the sell button, wiping out over $160 billion of the total cryptocurrency market cap since Friday. Few things have compounded as the first quarter of this year closes out, leading to the sell-off, including Trump’s tariff threats, global economic concerns and the lack of a clear catalyst for the next leg up. However, if history is anything to go by, there might be some glimmer of hope heading into the second quarter, as April could bring a bullish setup for crypto.Bitcoin’s heatmap, based on average returns since 2010. (Barchart) Based on…
Bitcoin mining company MARA Holdings (MARA) is launching a fresh $2 billion stock offering to buy more bitcoin, continuing its plan of buying BTC in the open market through capital raise while sticking to its “Hodl” strategy. According to a Form 8-K and a new prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), MARA entered into an at-the-market (ATM) equity program with a group of investment banks including Barclays, BMO Capital Markets, BTIG, Cantor Fitzgerald, and others. The proceeds of the offering, which will see brokers selling shares of the miner from time to time, will be used…
Terraform Labs, the firm behind the collapsed Luna token and the TerraUSD stablecoin, will open a portal on March 31 to allow investors to file claims for crypto losses tied to the company’s downfall and subsequent bankruptcy.The online system, operated by claims administrator Kroll, is part of the company’s court-supervised wind-down process. Investors have until April 30 at 11:59 p.m. ET to submit claims through claims.terra.money. Late submissions will not be considered, meaning those who miss the deadline forfeit their right to any recovery, according to a Medium post.Eligible claims must be tied to specific cryptocurrencies listed in the case…
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped or paused over a dozen ongoing cases (and lost one) since U.S. President Donald Trump retook office just over two months ago and appointed Commissioner Mark Uyeda as acting chair.You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. Click here to sign up for future editions.The narrativeThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission appears to have closed almost all of its outstanding crypto-related cases — at least the publicly disclosed ones — in the last two months since Mark Uyeda took over as acting chair of…
FTX, the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange once helmed by Sam Bankman-Fried, plans to begin paying its main creditors at the end of May, Bloomberg reported based on court proceedings in Delaware this week.The company has gathered $11.4 billion in cash to distribute to thousands of parties affected by its 2022 bankruptcy, with the first payments to major creditors set for May 30.These include institutional investors and firms that held crypto on FTX’s platform. Smaller creditors with claims below the $50,000 mark have already begun receiving distributions.FTX’s collapse left a financial crater and a trail of frustrated creditors—many of whom expected to…
Cryptocurrency prices have experienced a sharp declune over the last few hours, with bitcoin (BTC) now being down around 3% over the last 24 hours, while major altcoins including XRP, BNB, and SOL are down between 4% and 5% over the same period.The broader cryptocurrency market, represented by the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), lost around 3.3% of its value over the period. The sharp drop brings BTC’s performance down 1.7% for the week, while CD20 is down nearly 5%.Over the last 24 hours, over $300 million worth of long positions were liquidated on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, while $38.8 million worth…
Bpifrance, a French state-owned investment bank, plans to invest 25 million euros ($27 million) in digital assets as part of an initiative to strengthen the country’s blockchain industry.The bank will buy and hold crypto tokens related to decentralized finance (DeFi) tokenization, staking and staking, it said on Thursday.The plan is for the investments to support local blockchain projects in their early stages for the betterment of the broader blockchain industry in France”Having the ability to invest directly in digital assets is a significant step forward for Bpifrance and a pioneering initiative among sovereign wealth funds,” the bank said.France emerged as…
Nasdaq submitted a 19b-4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve the listing of a spot Avalanche exchange-traded fund (ETF) managed by Grayscale.Grayscale already manages an Avalanche Trust that carries a 2.5% management fee. The filing could lead to a cheaper, more flexible investment vehicle with exposure to the AVAX token, and reflects an industry trend toward developing regulated vehicles for altcoin trading. The SEC, however, has yet to approve any spot altcoin ETFs beyond those offering exposure to ether (ETH).If approved, Grayscale’s fund would offer another path for traditional investors to access crypto assets through…
Baanx, a cryptocurrency debit card enabler for the likes of MetaMask and 1inch, has introduced a rewards wallet combining on-chain finance with traditional loyalty perks and discounts, using underlying technology from Circle, the provider of the USDC stablecoin.Built on Circle’s programmable wallet tech, the Baanx platform allows crypto holders access to cashback, fee discounts, subscription perks and exclusive gated experiences, according to a press release.An ongoing convergence between traditional card networks and the on-chain world of stablecoins and decentralized finance (DeFi) has seen Mastercard partner with Web3 wallet MetaMask, and more recently reports of Visa in talks with Sam Altman’s…
Hopes for the crypto recovery to continue vanished on Friday, as a market-wide rout erased virtually all gains from earlier this week.Bitcoin (BTC), hovering just below $88,000 a day ago, tumbled to $83,800 recently and is down 3.8% over the past 24 hours. The broad-market benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index declined 5.7%, with native cryptos Avalanche (AVAX), Polygon (POL), Near (NEAR), and Uniswap (UNI) all nursing almost 10% losses during the same period. Today’s sell-off wiped out $115 billion of the total market value of cryptocurrencies, TradingView data shows.Ethereum’s ether (ETH) declined over 6% to extend its downtrend against BTC, falling…