Monat: Februar 2023

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Bitcoin slips amid market reaction to US jobs report

  • Bitcoin price fell slightly to retest support near $23,250 on Friday.
  • The top cryptocurrency’s price action mirrored early trades on Wall Street as the market reacted to US economic data.
  • The US added 517,000 jobs, against an estimated 188,000 and unemployment fell to 53-year low of 3.4%.

Bitcoin responded to Friday’s US jobs report by swinging nearly 2% lower to trade around $23,250 early morning. As CoinJournal reported, Bitcoin fell against the US dollar after it briefly touched highs of $24,086. 

Across crypto, Ethereum had slipped towards $1,600 with about 1.4% in losses.

Bitcoin and stocks react to US jobs data

As noted, early action across cryptocurrency prices mirrored the opening on Wall Street, where the three major US indices swung lower after the January jobs report showed a higher-than-expected rise in nonfarm payroll.

Data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the labour market added 517,000 jobs in the first month of 2023. The statistic indicated an unexpected growth, exceeding the 188,000 estimated by economists.

The US economy added far more jobs in January than the 223,000 managed in December, with the unemployment rate falling to its lowest level in over half a century. Per the data, unemployment is now down to 3.4%, the lowest level for the US since 1969. Economists expected the unemployment rate at 3.5%

The market’s reaction to the economic data, together with sentiment around disappointing earnings results from across Big Tech, fueled an early sell-off on Wall Street. It’s also likely down to nervousness over what this means for the Fed’s inflation outlook.

The S&P 500 fell nearly 1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined by 100 points before regaining some footing. The Nasdaq Composite, impacted by a decline across tech stocks, shed more than 1.3% in early trading.

The major indices are trying to recoup the early losses, as is Bitcoin that is trading near $23,500 as of 10.25 am ET. If bulls regain the upside momentum, BTC is likely to retest its intraday highs just above $24,000.

The post Bitcoin slips amid market reaction to US jobs report appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Binance terminates wallet services to WazirX

  • Binance says WazirX has till 3 February 2023 at 23:59 UTC to withdraw assets from its accounts.
  • According to Binance, Zanmai Labs, the company behind WazirX, has failed to retract misleading public statements about their relationship.
  • Changpeng Zhao said in August 2022 that Binance never acquired WazirX and that it only offered wallet services to the exchange.

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has terminated wallet services it has been offering to Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX.

An announcement Binance published on Friday, 3 February 2023, notes that the decision to halt the wallet service relates to Zanmai Labs, the company that operates WazirX. As explained in the blog post, Zanmai has severally put forth misleading claims about its relationship with Binance.

In particular, claims that Binance had control over WazirX user funds and exchange operations is a misleading narrative that Zanmai has continued to perpetuate.

Binance halts wallet services to WazirX operator

Due to all the false claims, Binance says it gave Zanmai the opportunity to retract the misrepresentations if they wanted to still benefit from the wallet services. That hasn’t happened and it’s the reason for the move.

According to Binance, the relationship between it and Zanmai has only been around the provision of wallet services. These, the exchange added, are offered “as a tech solution” to help power WazirX’s exchange operations and that this isn’t unique to Zanmai. 

The wallet service is similarly offered to other companies that leverage the technology and infrastructure to run their own businesses.

“On 26 January 2023, we offered Zanmai a choice between retracting the false public statements (and continuing to use our services) or terminating the use of our wallet service. Since Zanmai has refused to clarify their misleading statements, Zanmai has till 3 February 2023 (23:59 UTC) to remove the funds from the accounts that they used for WazirX’s operations,” Binance wrote.

Reportedly, Zanmai is ready to withdraw all WazirX assets from Binance accounts. Binance is also offering to allow the withdrawals to extend beyond 3 February. The process will not impact Binance users, the exchange noted.

In August last year, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao explained that although his company had announced its acquisition of WazirX in 2019, the deal never materialized. Zhao’s comments came as the Indian government froze WazirX accounts amid investigations into a money laundering scheme.

The post Binance terminates wallet services to WazirX appeared first on CoinJournal.

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MicroStrategy BTC paper loss hit $1.3B but no plans to stop trading bitcoin

  • MicroStrategy registered $34 million in its first-ever bitcoin sale.
  • The company registered a paper loss of over 1 billion in 2022.
  • MicroStrategy made its first bitcoin purchase in August 2020.

Despite making a paper loss of about $1.3 billion in 2022, MicroStrategy’s chief financial officer, Andrew Kang, said that the company will continue trading bitcoin. During a presentation for the Q4 2022 financial results webnier, Kang said:

“We may consider pursuing additional transactions that may take advantage of the volatility in Bitcoin prices, or other market dislocations that are consistent with our long-term Bitcoin strategy.”

The company’s stand on digital currencies comes at a time the crypto market is witnessing considerable recovery from last year’s plunge although it is not clear if digital currencies will ever reclaim their previous highs.

Microstrategy bitcoin investment

Microstrategy made its first bitcoin purchase in August 2020 acquiring 21,454 BTC in what it described as a “capital allocation strategy.” The company has been accumulating bitcoins since then and by December 24 2022 it had as much as 132,500 BTC worth $4.027 billion according to Microstrategy bitcoin statistics on the Buy Bitcoin Worldwide website.

In the presentation on February 2023, Kang confirmed that Microstrategy holds 132,500 bitcoin that are worth about $1.84 billion as of Dec. 31, 2022.

In the last quarter, MicroStrategy made a loss of $34 million after making its first-ever Bitcoin sale. The company made the decision to sell some of its bitcoins to recoup some tax losses.

Microstrategy co-founder Michael Saylor said Bitcoin is one of the most important benchmarks that it uses to measure its stock performance against. He said that the company’s stock has risen by 117% since August 2020 compared to the bitcoin price which has risen by 98% in the same period.

In an interview with a popular news outlet, Saylor said:

“The only real safe haven for an institutional investor is Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the only universally acknowledged digital commodity, and so if you’re an investor, Bitcoin is your safe haven in this regard.”

The post MicroStrategy BTC paper loss hit $1.3B but no plans to stop trading bitcoin appeared first on CoinJournal.