Digital Currency
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The Beginnings of Institutional Ethereum: Recapping the First Few Weeks of CME Ether Futures
On February 8, CME Group officially launched Ether futures. ETH futures went live just a little more than three years after CME Group began offering Bitcoin futures. In this interview, CME Group Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products Tim McCourt discusses the origins of ETH futures, what convinced them that the time was right for the product to go live, how institutional investors’ attitudes towards Ethereum (and crypto as a whole) have changed, and how the response from the market has been. When did you start thinking…
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Duke University’s Early Coinbase Investment Could Now Be Worth $500M: Sources
The endowment fund of Duke University, the alma mater of Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, was one of the fortunate few to have made an early investment in the soon-to-list cryptocurrency exchange, CoinDesk has learned. Two people familiar with the matter said the $3.9 billion Duke Endowment was included early on in the cap table of Coinbase, which is expected to command a price tag of around $100 billion when its shares debut on Nasdaq. Those shares are now worth a small fortune, on the order of nine figures, the sources…
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Staking as an Asset Class? This Swiss Institutional Fund Is Jumping In
While institutional investors around the world are just getting their heads around bitcoin (BTC, +5.09%), asset managers in crypto-friendly Switzerland are heading into staking on next-generation blockchain networks. Announced Friday, Zurich-based investment firm Tavis Digital has partnered with Singapore-based Persistence, a bridge for traditional firms into undiscovered realms such as token staking and decentralized finance (DeFi). Tavis Digital is a spin-off of Tavis Capital, an asset manager regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) with about $1.07 billion in assets under management. Nimble and financially sophisticated countries like Switzerland and…
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Why Bitcoin Is a Better Risk Bet Than a Stack of Penny Stocks
Bitcoin is getting boring at a time when annualized 30-day volatility as of Thursday’s close has seen a sharp downward dip, in a March with its own type of (weather) volatility. Source: CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index To emphasize the point, have a look at the chart above, which shows the volatility of bitcoin daily returns for the past month. To be fair, I’m employing a little chart crime here, starting the y axis at 40% in order to accentuate the drop between March 24-25, as all but the last days of February have…
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Whale Shark’s NFT Collectors Playbook
Thinking about buying some non-fungibles? Maybe you’re even thinking about investing? Maybe you still can’t wrap your brain around the idea of digital art being sold for $69 million, but you’re open-minded, you’ve done your homework and you think the rewards outweigh the risks. And maybe this is money you can afford to lose, so what the hell? [Obligatory disclaimer: Nothing that follows is financial advice. Investing in NFTs – or anything in crypto – is packed with risk and you can lose everything. Proceed with caution.] But if you’re trying to get your…
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Bitcoin Gains Ahead of $6B Options Expiry After Market Finds $50K Floor
Bitcoin rose for the first time in three days as traders looked past Friday’s record $6 billion expiration of option contracts to a stronger market next week as April begins. “Returns after prior bitcoin options expiration dates have tended to be positive,” David Grider, strategist at Fundstrat, told clients in an email. “The market is calm based on bitcoin VIX [a volatility index] falling, with room to fall further.” BTC was changing hands at roughly $52,700 as of 12:03 UTC (8:04 a.m. ET), up 2.9% on the day. An oversold signal on Thursday…
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The Institutions Come to ETH: Recapping the First Few Weeks of CME Ether Futures
On February 8, CME Group officially launched Ether futures. ETH futures went live just a little more than three years after CME Group began offering Bitcoin futures. In this interview, CME Group Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products Tim McCourt discusses the origins of ETH futures, what convinced them that the time was right for the product to go live, how institutional investors’ attitudes towards Ethereum (and crypto as a whole) have changed, and how the response from the market has been. When did you start thinking…
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Recapping the First Few Weeks of CME Ether Futures
On February 8, CME Group officially launched Ether futures. ETH futures went live just a little more than three years after CME Group began offering Bitcoin futures. In this interview, CME Group Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products Tim McCourt discusses the origins of ETH futures, what convinced them that the time was right for the product to go live, how institutional investors’ attitudes towards Ethereum (and crypto as a whole) have changed, and how the response from the market has been. When did you start thinking…
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Elon Musk’s Bitcoin Marketing Coup
Here’s some free advice for the Honda Motor Company: Market your cars to the newly bitcoin rich. I’ve already got the ad copy for you. A true bitcoiner is building for the future and deferring gratification. She doesn’t blow her hard-earned savings on flashy toys. She prefers a solid, dependable family car. And a slogan…. Lambos are for losers. HODLers drive Hondas. Marc Hochstein, CoinDesk’s executive editor, owns some bitcoin, and if he were smarter he’d have bought more years ago. This article is excerpted from The Node, CoinDesk’s daily roundup of the…
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Story from Markets Market Wrap: Bitcoin Steady Near $54K; RSI Indicator Warns of Limited Uptrend
Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $53,824.22 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Climbing 3.22% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $51,267.19-$54,032.05 (CoinDesk 20) BTC trades above its 10-hour and 50-hour averages on the hourly chart, a bullish signal for market technicians. Bitcoin trading on CoinbaseSource: TradingView What a dud: Friday’s record $6 billion expiry in the bitcoin options market turned to be a nonevent as prices for the largest cryptocurrency climbed steadily, with nary a glimpse of the feared plunge to the “max pain” point of $44,000. For bitcoin bulls, the absence…
