Author: Coindesk

The crypto market should see a pick up in volatility at the end of this week, as the monthly (BTC) and ether (ETH) options contracts are set to expire this Friday. This comes a day after the U.S. bank holiday Thanksgiving, giving traders an opportunity to be thankful for a potential increase in volatility. BTC and ETH options contracts worth $9.4 billion and $1.3 billion will expire on the trading exchange Deribit at 08:00 UTC on Nov. 29. An option allows the holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset as a specific price…

Howard Lutnick, chairman of Wall Street trading firm Cantor Fitzgerald, is in discussions with Tether’s Giancarlo Devasini about Cantor’s multi-billion dollar program that will allow clients to borrow money using bitcoin as collateral, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.First announced in July, the lending initiative will start with $2 billion in funds, which could eventually grow to tens of billions of dollars. Tether’s potential inclusion in the project signals a deepening of the relationship between the stablecoin issuer and the trading firm.Cantor — which has been the custodian for Tether’s U.S. Treasuries since 2021 — has also acquired a…

MicroStrategy’s (MSTR) bitcoin (BTC) treasury model is unparalleled and the company is expected to attract billions of dollars of investment into the world’s largest cryptocurrency, broker Bernstein said in a research report Monday.Bernstein raised its MicroStrategy price target to $600 from $290 while maintaining its outperform rating on the stock. Rival broker Canaccord raised its price target to $510 from $300 and reiterated its buy rating.The shares were trading over 6% higher at around $448 in early trading.Bernstein said it expects MicroStrategy to own 4% of the world’s bitcoin supply by 2033. It currently has 1.7%.The company founded by Michael…

The wild 2000s era of internet shock videos is making a return in crypto. Some issuers of memecoins on Solana’s runaway hit Pump.fun are streaming videos ranging from extreme dark humor to dark behavior, all to pump their tokens to a few million dollars in market capitalization. There are streams and images of children tied up, a man locked up in his toilet continuously, killing of hens, fetish videos, and softcore porn. Live streaming on the platform was a feature added last week. Some tokens even have images of a human slashing forearms or playing with fire (though these are…

If you think the Terra/Luna crash of 2022 left lasting scars on the South Korean crypto community, you are wrong. With the bitcoin (BTC) bull market in full swing, Koreans are again diving in head first and snapping up smaller cryptocurrencies.Trading volume on South Korea’s largest exchange, Upbit, which accounts for over 70% of the country’s total activity, has skyrocketed 11-fold to $14.3 billion since the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election that saw pro-crypto candidate Donald Trump emerge victorious, according to data source Coingecko.Driving this exceptional volume growth are XRP, dogecoin (DOGE) and other smaller tokens, pointing to a resurgence…

Yes, you read the title correctly, and it does appears contradictory. As bitcoin (BTC) nears the $100,000 milestone – a clear sign of strength – the reality is that its actually quite vulnerable to potential negative news.That’s according to the “order book skew ratio,” which shows that buyers have surprisingly pulled back their firepower as prices near six digits. The ratio measures the number of people wanting to sell, or the ask side, relative to those on the buy or the bid side.The three-day moving average of the 1% skew, which measures the ask-bid imbalance within 1% of the mid-price,…

Sky Mavis, the web3 gaming firm behind Axie Infinity, laid off 21% of its workforce last week.The web3 firm’s co-founder and CEO Trung Nguyen said on X on Saturday that the layoffs were not related to the company’s budget or financial health.“Instead, it is a strategic move that allows for a sharper focus and positioning Sky Mavis for hypergrowth in 2025 and beyond,” he said.According to Nguyen, the move came despite the year being “one of valuable growth and evolution”. Going forward the company will focus on its core products rather than trying to build products for all users, he…

Bitcoin (BTC) pared last week’s gains with a price drop from $98,500 to as low as $95,500 during late U.S. hours on Sunday, before recovering, in a move that sent the broader crypto market tumbling.BTC dropped more than 3.5% from its peak, with a technical and sentimental pullback on the back of profit-taking, which was widely expected as the token neared the $100K mark.XRP and dogecoin (DOGE) fell more than 5% to lead losses among majors. Solana’s SOL, ether (ETH), Cardano’s ADA and BNB fell between 2%-5%, before recovering during early Asian hours Monday. Overall market capitalization fell 2.4%. The…

El repentino anuncio de dimisión de un segundo demócrata de la Comisión del Mercado de Valores de Estados Unidos, Jaime Lizárraga, podría dar un impulso a los republicanos, que empiezan a trabajar para cambiar la dirección política de la agencia.El anuncio de Lizárraga se produce un día después de que el presidente Gary Gensler dijera que dejaría el cargo en el momento en que el presidente electo Donald Trump preste juramento el 20 de enero.Otro comisario demócrata de la Comisión del Mercado de Valores seguirá al presidente Gary Gensler en enero, dejando a la agencia con mayoría republicana mientras sopesa…

Il presidente eletto degli Stati Uniti Donald Trump ha nominato il gestore di hedge fund Scott Bessent, un appassionato Criptovaluta , come suo candidato per la carica di Segretario al Tesoro.Se il Senato lo confermerà, la prossima persona la cui firma adornerà la valuta cartacea statunitense sarà un fan dell’ecosistema della valuta digitale creato per sostituire il sistema finanziario convenzionale.Bessent dirige Key Square Group, una società di investimenti macro. Ha lavorato per il famoso investitore George Soros tre decenni fa ed è stato, secondo il Wall Street Journal , “ONE delle forze trainanti” dietro la famosa scommessa di Soros Fund…