Kategorie: Crypto Markets

• The Nasdaq exchange has announced its yearly reshuffling of the top 100 largest non-financial companies by market capitalisation and will add MicroStrategy to the list for the first time.
• The growth in MicroStrategy’s stock price, fueled by Bitcoin’s positive performance, has ballooned its market value, allowing it to qualify for inclusion.
• MicroStrategy’s stock will be exposed to passive investment opportunities by being included in Invesco’s QQQ and other ETFs that invest in the Nasdaq’s top companies.

The Nasdaq 100 index tracks the 100 largest companies on the Nasdaq exchange. The companies included are usually recipients of passive fund flows from popular ETFs.

With a market capitalisation of $97.94 billion, MicroStrategy is the 40th largest company on the Nasdaq exchange, largely due to its massive Bitcoin treasury. The company’s share price has risen 505% since the start of the year, ballooning its market capitalisation from roughly $15 billion on Jan. 2 2024 to its current value.

MicroStrategy’s stock rise

MicroStrategy’s tremendous stock price run is driven by its Bitcoin buying efforts, which have spanned from August 2020 to December 2024 and have transformed the company into a quasi-Bitcoin ETF.

In total, the company has spent $23.41 billion on Bitcoin at an average price of $58,200 mainly by issuing debt notes. Its Bitcoin stash is worth $42 billion at market prices at the time of publishing.

More exposure to investors

MSTR’s inclusion in the NAS100 will expose it to more investors and funds that invest in the Nasdaq index. The largest fund that does this is Invesco’s QQQ trust with an AUM of $352 billion, but other funds holding billions of dollars also invest in the companies in the NAS100, like the iShares NASDAQ 100 UCITS ETF.

However, it is worth noting that not all companies in the Nasdaq 100 carry equal weighting. For example, Invesco’s QQQ ETF allocates roughly 53.1% of its portfolio to the top 10 companies on the Nasdaq exchange, while the remainder is distributed among the other 90 companies.

Nonetheless, 0.1% of a $352 billion pie is still significant.

It’s not all positive news

While the Nasdaq’s annual rebalancing will include MicroStrategy, the criteria for companies’ inclusion in the index is the major source of their market value.

MicroStrategy remains a provider of business intelligence technology and solutions, however, if a greater part of its value comes from its Bitcoin holdings, then it could be reclassified as a financial company and removed from the Nasdaq 100.

Bitcoin trades at $102,800 as of publishing while Nasdaq’s rebalancing will take effect on Dec. 23.

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iDEGEN is racing through its presale with more than $5 million raised as the AI agents market attracts the attention of global asset manager Franklin Templeton. With some of the top performing tokens in the market this past few months being AI meme coins, is iDEGEN worth a look?

Investors eye AI gems

The ai16z token’s pump in the past week, coupled with the massive rally that elevated the Terminal of Truths’ viral Goateus Maximus (GOAT), is driving attention to AI agents. According to a post by Franklin Templeton, AI agents are “interesting.”

AI Agents. Interesting……

— Franklin Templeton Digital Assets (@FTDA_US) December 13, 2024

Crypto and analytics firm Messari also holds this same outlook for AI agents. If not sure what the buzz is all about, then the next phase of trending cryptocurrencies is AI agents. After AI meme coins’ dominance earlier in the year, its AI agents that are the new crypto buzz.

Powerful and autonomous agents are the crypto market’s top segment in crypto AI. It’s not just Franklin Templeton or Messari that are signaling a potential explosion for this sector. AI agents are now on top chains and counting.

However, interest in the new project iDEGEN stands out as early birds continue to position.

The iDEGEN token: What’s driving interest?

In just over two weeks, the artificial intelligence project iDEGEN has raised over $5.1 million and seen more than 1 billion IDGN tokens sold. From the investment opportunity point of view, this looks like a major statement from crypto and AI token enthusiasts.

Since its initial pre-market sale began, IDGN price has risen from $0.00011 to $0.0164 at the time of writing and signaling a 14,800% jump.

This huge interest in iDEGEN’s presale is down to its unique approach to AI. Rather an AI-powered platform, this is an entirely new experiment that seeks to thrive in the chaos of crypto twitter. Out is set to be a sentient AI agent that absorbs every tweet and tag on X. It adapts, learns and posts every hour – it’s degen raised and comes with no training guardrails.

A powerful community is emerging around this coin, buoyed by the adaptive auction that has buyers able to purchase coins with three potential price setups in five-minute windows. IDGN price either stays the same, increases 5% or drops depending on the dynamic price mechanism.

The end of the auction sale will be on January 1, 2025, when iDEGEN lists on trading platforms and kicks off the new era of AI agents and related meme coins. Investors who may have missed GOAT, Virtual or ai16z could find iDEGEN interesting.

Interested? Learn more by visiting the official iDEGEN website.

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• Hill won after a second round vote, beating three other crypto-friendly Republicans
• Current Chair Patrick McHenry is retiring in on January 25, 2025
• Hill has championed several crypto bills, including legislation to regulate digital assets

Crypto-friendly French Hill will take over as Chair of the US House Financial Services Committee in next year’s new Congress.

Republican Hill won the race on December 12 against representatives Andy Barr of Kentucky, Bill Huizenga of Michigan, and Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, all of whom are friendly toward crypto.

In a statement following his win, Hill said he was “humbled” to become the next Chair of the House Financial Services Committee.

He added that he was looking forward to working “with President Trump and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott to bring common-sense economic policies that will produce a new era of American prosperity shared by all our citizens across our land.”

Hill will take over the position from the current Chair Patrick McHenry who is stepping down on January 25, 2025.

McHenry said: “With French Hill at the helm, Republicans will build on our work from this Congress to finally enact a clear regulatory framework and robust consumer protections for the digital asset ecosystem.”

The Financial Services Committee is considered a powerful agency in the US, and with Hill leading the organization, he will work with Trump’s administration on a range of issues, including crypto.

Hill has championed a number of crypto bills, including legislation to regulate digital assets, which passed the US House in May.

Hill’s appointment as the new Chair of the House Financial Services Committee follows the nomination of Paul Atkins as the incoming Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair.

Current SEC Chair Gary Gensler is stepping down in January 2025.

Trump has also named David Sacks as the lead policy advisor on artificial intelligence and crypto, dubbing him the “White House AI and Crypto Czar.”

The post French Hill voted in to chair US House Financial Services Committee next year appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Avalanche has raised $250 million from Galaxy Digital, Dragonfly and ParaFi Capital among other investors.
• The token sale comes as Avalanche nears the mainnet launch of its layer-1 blockchain upgrade.

Avalanche has secured $250 million in a token sale fundraiser as the layer-1 blockchain looks to bring its upgrade to market.

Galaxy Digital, Dragonfly, and ParaFi Capital led the blockchain project’s fundraiser, with more than 40 investment firms participating. They include SkyBridge, SCB Limited, Hivemind, Big Brain Holdings, Hypersphere, Lvna Capital, Republic Capital, and Morgan Creek Digital.

Per an announcement on Dec. 12, other backers of the round include FinTech Collective, CMCC Global, Superscrypt, Cadenza, Chorus One, and Tané Labs.

Avalanche9000 upgrade

The locked token sale comes a few weeks after Avalanche9000, the project’s highly anticipated upgrade launched in a testnet. Avalanche is looking to make transactions and deployment of applications on the L1 cheaper by 99.9%.

“Our support of Avalanche, and the growth and scalability of blockchain protocols, is essential to the future of this industry,” Jason Urban, global head of trading at Galaxy, said.

“By helping Avalanche reach a broader institutional investor base, we are accelerating their ability to innovate and scale. At Galaxy, we are providing Avalanche with the strategic resources and services needed to foster institutional participation and long-term growth, ensuring they can lead the next wave of blockchain adoption with Avalanche9000,” Urban added.

Avalanche9000 targets ecosystem dominance across real-world asset tokenization, gaming, loyalty and rewards, and payments among other sectors. The project introduced a $40 million grant program that includes $2 million for referral rewards, to incentivize developer activity on Avalanche.

“Avalanche is uniquely positioned to be a driving force in the evolution of on-chain institutional finance,” Ben Forman, founder and managing partner of ParaFi Capital, said. “Architectural advantages like fast transaction finality and high throughput, combined with customizable virtual machines, make it an ideal platform for securely and compliantly issuing and managing tokenized assets.”

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• Senate Banking Committee chair Sherrod Brown called it a “disgusting smear campaign against Caroline Crenshaw”
• The vote was postponed minutes before it was due to begin by Brown
• No date has been set for Crenshaw’s renomination

A US Senate vote to renominate Democrat Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been postponed.

The vote was originally scheduled on December 11; however, it was postponed minutes before it was due to begin, reports Bloomberg. Sherrod Brown, the Senate Banking Committee chair, delayed the vote. When Brown requested the vote occur later that day, Republican senators blocked his request.

Brown later released a statement saying that corporate special interests are running a “disgusting smear campaign against Caroline Crenshaw.”

No date has been set for her renomination.

Earlier this week, crypto and blockchain advocacy groups voiced their opposition to Crenshaw’s renomination.

In a letter to Brown and Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Tim Scott, the Blockchain Association and the DeFi Education Fund argued that Crenshaw’s actions have undermined Congress’s mandate to establish clear regulatory policies for the crypto industry.

In their letter, they mention Crenshaw’s “continued opposition to the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETP.”

Following the news of Crenshaw’s reappointment, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, took to X to say: “She tried to block the Bitcoin ETFs, and was worse than Gensler on some issues (which I didn’t think was possible).”

A Republican-majority SEC?

The delay to Crenshaw’s renomination opens up the possibility of a three-person Republican SEC once Donald Trump enters the White House in January. Crenshaw’s term at the SEC officially ended in June; however, if she’s renominated she would be the only Democratic SEC commissioner.

The SEC can make up to five commissioners, but no more than three can form the same political party. Current SEC chair Gary Gensler, a Democrat, is stepping down on January 20, and SEC Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga, also a Democrat, will step down on January 17.

Last week, Trump nominated pro-crypto Paul Atkins, a Republican, as chair of the SEC.

Including Gensler and Lizárraga, the three remaining SEC commissioners include Republicans Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda.

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