Kategorie: Crypto Markets

BlockFills has partnered with Basis Capital Markets, an FCA-regulated affiliate, to offer both spot crypto assets and cash-settled contracts for difference (CFD).

BlockFills, one of the crypto industry’s fastest growing trading and financial technology providers, is looking to bring more investors into the market via its integration of digital assets CFDs (“contracts for differences”).

BlockFills adds cash-settled CFDs via front-end Phoenix

In an announcement on Monday, BlockFills said it would be offering the CFD product via its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution Phoenix. The premier front-end platform that previously only supported spot crypto trading, is targeted for institutional investors.

According to the fintech firm, Phoenix will now support both spot crypto assets and cash-settled CFDs or the so-called perpetual futures.

Nick Hammer, the co-founder and CEO of the Chicago-based company, noted in a statement that the integration is key to a market that has long sought “a trading solution that combines deep liquidity in cash-settled crypto derivatives with a superior front end.” 

“The appeal of trading in volatile markets without the complexity of physical settlement has already generated large amounts of interest in our offering. We expect that trend to continue,” Hammer commented via a press release.

To offer the new product, BlockFills has partnered with Basis Capital Markets, the company’s FCA-regulated London-based affiliate. The institutional-focused platform will help bring the perpetual futures product to non-US institutions around the world.

The company says qualified clients will have access to deep crypto CFD liquidity, available 24/7 and with prices across multiple fiat currencies, including the US dollar, Euro, British Pound and Japanese yen.

BlockFills launched in 2018 and currently offers its digital asset technology to institutional clients in more than 50 countries. In February 2022, as CoinJournal reported, BlockFills and Nexo partnered in a deal aimed at extending prime brokerage services to leading cryptocurrency miners.

In June, the company announced the listing of CME Group crypto derivatives products.

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Bitcoin has been one of the fastest-accelerating asset classes in history.

Trading at fractions of a penny 14 years ago, it ran all the way up to close to $69,000 last year.

It is against this context of outrageous gains which shows how remarkable it is that most of the Bitcoin supply is now loss-making. Comparing the current price of Bitcoin to the price at which coins within each address last moved, only 49.4% of addresses are in profit.

Aside from a couple of brief visits below 50% in September, this marks the first time since the COVID-panic of March 2020 that the majority of Bitcoin addresses have been in the red.

Human emotion

Perhaps there is a lesson in FOMO here somewhere.

It is stunning how much money poured into the crypto markets during the pandemic, with cryptocurrency constantly residing in media coverage, Zoom chatrooms and mainstream consciousness, that the bulk of the network is now underwater.

Zooming out further to Bitcoin’s inception in 2010, shows how the price really ramped up in latter years – as well as the number of addresses in profit plummeting thereafter when the music stopped playing.  

This doesn’t really show us anything we don’t know already, but I nonetheless thought it underlined quite how brutal this bear market has been. In looking back at the 2018 bear market, the bottom was hit when the addresses in profit dipped below 40%.

In March 2020, although an extreme outlier month given it was when COVID truly arrived, we dipped below 45%.

In that context, we have a bit more to go here. But what exactly is that context? I actually think that metrics from previous crypto winters here are largely irrelevant. Crypto has evolved too much to be compared to those days anymore, when liquidity was so scarce and Bitcoin was confined to faraway corners of the Internet. It was not a mainstream financial asset, and so I am hesitant to draw too much from studying these time periods.

Secondly, the previous cycles did not occur in conjunction with a bear market across all financial assets. The stock market has printed unstoppable gains since 2009, which was the year Satoshi Nakamoto essentially invented crypto when he published the Bitcoin whitepaper.

Let me be very clear, therefore: crypto has never existed while there has been a wider market bear, or – dare I say it – recession. With that in mind, comparisons to previous cycles need to be made prudently. This is not a case of simply waiting to inevitably bounce back.

Maybe that is exactly what will happen. Who knows – but my point is that such blind optimism is misplaced. This is an unprecedented environment for crypto.

And more addresses than not being loss-making shows quite how far we have fallen.

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The world’s payment giant Mastercard announced in an interview with CNBC that it will help financial institutions including banks offer cryptocurrency trading to their clients. The payment company is determined to make it easier for banks to participate in bringing crypto to the masses.

Mastercard intends to act as a “bridge” between Paxos crypto trading platform and banks. Paxos is already being used by PayPal to offer crypto services in the UK.

Mastercard will handle security and regulatory compliance, which are the two main reasons why banks avoid getting involved in crypto.

Lots of consumers interested in crypto

Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile and there is also the current bear market that was triggered by the collapse of Terra LUNA following the de-pegging of its UST stablecoin. There has also been a string of bankruptcy filings by an array of crypto service providers like Celsius and Voyager Digital. 

However, despite all these, Mastercard still believes that there are many customers out there that are interested in cryptocurrencies.

Mastercard’s chief digital officer, Jorn Lambert, said that survey shows there is still a high demand for digital assets although about 60% of those interviewed would prefer trying out the space through established banks.

During the interview with CNBC Jorn Lambert said:

“There’s a lot of consumers out there that are really interested in this, and intrigued by crypto, but would feel a lot more confident if those services were offered by their financial institutions. It’s a little scary to some people still.”

Lambert also said:

“It would be shortsighted to think that a little bit of a crypto winter heralds the end of it — we don’t see that. As regulation comes in, there is going to be a higher degree of security available to the crypto platforms and we’ll see a lot of the current issues getting resolved in the quarters in the years to come.”

Banks have invested in crypto but avoid offering to clients

Large investment banks like Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan, have established teams to explore the crypto space but have so far avoided offering the product to clients. Just last week, the CEO of JPMorgan, Jamie Dimon, referred to cryptocurrencies as “decentralized Ponzis” during an Institute for International Finance event.

If the banks embrace Mastercard’s partnership model through Paxos, it would mean more competition for popular crypto exchanges, especially those like Coinbase that operate in the US.

Mastercard to pilot the product in Q1 of 2023

Mastercard will pilot the product that will see it handle regulation by following crypto compliance rules, verifying transactions and providing anti-money-laundering and identity monitoring services in the first quarter of 2023.

While Lambert declined to hint at which banks have been chosen for the pilot, he said that the payment giant will expand the product in more places after the pilot.

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Two of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges gained regulatory approval to operate in Singapore as Coinbase announced a major partnership with Google.

Blockchain.com and Coinbase secure Singapore licences

Earlier this week, Blockchain.com, one of the leading crypto trading platforms, announced that it had gained regulatory approval to offer its services in Singapore. The crypto exchange said it had secured approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). 

Blockchain.com explained that the in-principle approval is for the Major Payment Institution Licence for Digital Payment Token services.

US-based crypto exchange Coinbase also announced earlier this week that it had received preliminary regulatory approval from Singapore’s monetary authority (MAS) to offer crypto services in Singapore.

Coinbase and Google Cloud announced a strategic partnership

Coinbase, one of the leading crypto exchanges in the world, announced earlier this week that it had partnered with Google Cloud. According to the terms of the partnership, Google Cloud will serve as Coinbase’s strategic cloud provider to develop advanced data and exchange services.

Coinbase said it would process blockchain data using Google Cloud’s powerful computing platform. The crypto exchange would also enhance global cryptocurrency service reach using Google Cloud’s top-grade fiber optic network.

DeFi platform Mango hit by $100 million exploit

Last week it was Binance, this week, it was Mango Markets. Earlier this week, Solana-based DeFi platform Mango Markets revealed that it suffered an exploit, with the attacker carting away $100 million from the protocol. 

The attacker manipulated the oracle prices on the protocol. However, the Mango Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) said it is now focused on preventing any further unnecessary losses on the network.

Uniswap raises $165 million in its latest funding round

Uniswap, one of the leading decentralised exchanges in the space, announced earlier this week that it had raised $165 million in a Series B funding round. 

The DEX said the investment round was led by Polychain Capital and while investors such as a16z crypto, Paradigm, SV Angel, and Variant also participated. Uniswap said it intends to use the funds to invest in its web application.

Crypto.com launches its European headquarters in France

Crypto.com, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges, announced earlier this week that it had launched its European headquarters in France.

The crypto exchange revealed that it had spent $145 million on this project, which included other strategic investments in France. Crypto.com said the investment would help ensure its long-term commitment to France as it would focus on the hiring of local talent to drive the company’s efforts across the region. 

Crypto.com added that the French office would focus on some aspects of its business, such as compliance, business development, and product.

Tron becomes the national blockchain of the Commonwealth of Dominica

To wrap up the week, Tron announced that it had become the National Blockchain of the Commonwealth of Dominica.

This means that Tron would play a vital role in the development and issuance of the Dominica Coin (DMC), a blockchain-based fan token.

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Uniswap wants to ‘bring Web3 to everyone’ , said founder and CEO Hayden Adams.

Uniswap Labs, the leading decentralised exchange (DEX) platform in the crypto ecosystem and which is behind the Uniswap cryptocurrency, has raised $165 million in its series B funding round as it looks to push forth with ambitions around NFTs and Web3.

Polychain Capital led the funding round, with multiple top crypto-oriented venture firms also participating.

According to the announcement shared via Twitter and in a company blog post, participants included Andreessen Horowitz (a16z crypto), venture firm Paradigm, San Francisco-based venture fund SV Angel, and Web3 focused early stage funding platform Variant.

Uniswap founder and CEO Hayden Adams said in a company blog that the funding will help bring the platform’s services and products to more people.

“When I built the Uniswap Protocol in 2018, it was an experiment to see if I could create something that fully embodied the values of Ethereum: transparent, secure, and accessible. Since then, it has grown and evolved in ways I never imagined,” Adams wrote in the ‘Bringing Web3 to Everyone’ post.

Web app and developer tools key to Uniswap growth

Since its launch, Uniswap has supported more than $1.2 trillion in trading volume, taking the central stage as a leading DeFi player. Uniswap price hit a high of $44.92 in May 2021 as the platform saw massive trading volumes.

As the company looks to grow by leveraging the latest financing, the plan is to continue providing critical infrastructure supporting the burgeoning industry. Part of the goal will be to invest in the company’s new web app as well as developer tools.

Also in the pipeline is the launch of NFTs and an entry into mobile among other developments, according to Adams.

The recently created Uniswap Foundation will also play a huge role in the overall development of the ecosystem via $60 million in grants extended to community projects.

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