Kategorie: Crypto Markets

• Circle’s move comes at a time when many firms in the industry are laying off workers.
• 41% of company layoffs in 2023 have so far come from the crypto industry.
• It also comes months after Circle aborted plans to go public.

USDC issuer Circle is planning to increase its staff by 15% to 25% just months after it aborted plans to go public in December 2022.

Circle had planned to become a public company through a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Concord Acquisition before the two firms mutually called off the plan. Circle’s chief financial officer Jeremy Fox-Geen, however, said that the firm still plans to go public once the market conditions are better.

Circle is increasing its workforce at a time when a good number of crypto firms have announced staff layoffs.

2023 crypto layoffs

Polygon Labs is the latest cryptocurrency firm to announce layoffs.

In a period of almost two months, about nine crypto firms including crypto exchanges have announced layoffs. Some of the companies that have announced layoffs include Coinbase, Huobi, Chainalysis, Gemini, Wyre, Crypto.com, Bittrex, and Genesis.

While the crypto industry is not the only one suffering from staff layoff, it accounts for about 41% of all layoffs in 2023 so far.

Other non-crypto firms that have announced layoffs this year include Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Amazon. The four companies have laid off about 48,000 people in 2023.

Circle, therefore, seems to be going against the tide.

The post Circle to increase staff by 25% months after aborting plans to go public appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Ankr (ANKR) price is up 70% this past week, while positive news has helped its value more than double on the 30-day timeframe.
• Ankr has struck partnerships with Microsoft and Tencent.
• The price outlook for ANKR is a potential retest of the resistance line at $0.058 and move higher, or a flip to recent demand zones.

The Ankr (ANKR) price soared to its highest price since August 2022, with bulls pushing past $0.05 to test a major resistance area.

While the token has pared some of the gains on Wednesday, the massive daily candle seen on Tuesday has helped to maintain weekly gains at 70% and 30-day gains at over 100%.

Ankr price forecast amid mega Microsoft and Tencent partnerships

ANKR’s breakout to highs of $0.058 happened as tech giant Microsoft announced a partnership with the blockchain platform. 

As covered by CoinJournal, the deal between Ankr and Microsoft is set to offer node services, and will focus on making it easy for enterprises and organizations to access blockchain data.  Microsoft will support the service via its Microsoft’s Azure marketplace.

The partnership with Microsoft comes on the back of another major collaboration with Tencent Cloud. In an announcement, the company said it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Web3 infrastructure provider. The partners will jointly work on a “suite of blockchain API services” as they help power Web3 growth.

The news has greatly aided ANKR price action over the past two days, with the cryptocurrency now trading roughly 40% higher since the huge candle on Tuesday.

What’s next for the Ankr (ANKR) price?

The ANKR price is up about 6% on Coinbase as of 13:30 ET on 22 February and is changing hands around $0.049.

While it has decreased from yesterday’s highs, the price is still near a key resistance line and a breakout could see it not only retest the $0.058 supply wall, but offer bulls a likely target to early May and early April resistance lines at $0.066 and $0.100 respectively. The daily and weekly RSI indicators are trending bullish to support this outlook.

#ANKR will meet some serious resistance at the recent high around 0.0585. If this breaks then expect next resistance at $ANKR 0.0669 Price should then push down in the final C wave to challenge the previous all time low #Evai pic.twitter.com/eXeGRfASVb

— Matthew Dixon – CEO Evai (@mdtrade) February 22, 2023

The post Ankr price prediction: ANKR outlook after Microsoft and Tencent partnerships appeared first on CoinJournal.

• U.S. consumer prices were up a more than expected 6.4% in January.
• Bitcoin mining stocks still gained near 20% in the week ended Feb 19th.
• Mike Colonnese reiterated his bullish view on BTC miners today.

Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics said consumer prices were up a more than expected 6.4% in January. Still, H.C. Wainwright & Co analyst Mike Colonnese remains bullish on bitcoin miners.

Mining stocks gained near 20% last week

Colonnese quoted the price action for the week that ended on February 19^th to defend his view in a recent note.

Despite inflation keeping well above the Fed’s 2.0% target, BTC gained about 12% in the said week prompting an even bigger near 20% increase in mining stocks.

That’s particularly encouraging when compared to the benchmark S&P 500 index that actually lost 0.3% in the week ended February 19^th. Colonnese also said in his research note:

BTC prices also responded positively to news on 2/15 of the SEC’s proposal to expand existing qualified custodian rules for client assets held with investment advisers to crypto assets.

Hashprices touched a four-month high

A 9.1% week-over-week increase in the network hash rate to 319 EH/s also fed into his constructive view on BTC miners. Continued upside in bitcoin prices pushed hashprices up to $0.08/TH in the said week – a more than 12% increase.

The aforementioned SEC proposal aims to protect investors against a qualified custodian bankruptcy. To that end, Colonnese wrote:

We view the proposal as a net positive, so long as new requirements for qualified crypto custodians are not onerous, as proposed changes could increase investor protections, and instill greater confidence in crypto ecosystem.

Of the six bitcoin mining stocks he covers, Colonnese currently has a “buy” rating on five.

The post Are BTC mining stocks still a good bet after inflation ticked up in January? appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Binance USD (BUSD) temporarily plunged to $0.20 on Binance on Wednesday.
• The depeg against DAI happened after a single $647,000 sell order.
• BUSD quickly regained its $1 peg, with the Binance orderbook showing a $3.38 million aggregated sell order.

Stablecoin Binance USD (BUSD) briefly depegged to 20 cents on Wednesday, with the BUSD token losing its peg against the DAI stablecoin.

The stablecoin’s plunge to $0.20 happened amid a liquidity issue on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

BUSD plummets after single $647k sell order

According to on-chain data, BUSD’s sharp depeg resulted from a single $647,000 sell order. However, there was an instant move back to the dollar peg against the DAI stablecoin as arbitrage traders acted swiftly to plough the opportunity by buying the token lower and selling it on other exchanges. The action quickly saw BUSD back to $1 on Binance.

The Binance orderbook is showing a $3.38 million aggregated sell order magnitude from the $1 to $0.20 slip. As such, it now needs $3.38 million in market sell orders for the stablecoin’s price to dip to today’s low again.

The temporary depeg against DAI for BUSD comes in the wake of regulatory push from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) and US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). After NYDFS ordered BUSD issuer Paxos to cease minting the stablecoin, the SEC announced it was suing the company for issuing an unregistered security.

The developments affected market sentiment and saw Paxos end its relationship with Binance. On its part, Binance revealed it could look at alternative stablecoins, including the potential to revisit algorithmic options as BUSD witnessed massive withdrawals.

The post BUSD briefly falls to $0.20 on Binance appeared first on CoinJournal.