Author: Ibiam Wayas

Ibiam is an optimistic crypto journalist. He loves to associate with like-minded individuals and collaborate with them on similar projects. He spends much of his time honing his writing and critical thinking skills.

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Binance Coinbase Crypto News

Binance Lists Coinbase (COIN) Stock Market Token For Trading

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has listed tokenised stocks for trading – including TELSA (TSLA) and Coinbase (COIN), with the latter recently launched on the NASDAQ exchange on Wednesday.

The tokenized version of Tesla and Coinbase will make company shares more accessible to crypto users who can’t trade them directly on the stock market for whatever reason.

Binance Postponed COIN Token Debut

The Coinbase stock tokens were supposed to be listed on Binance yesterday, shortly after it went live on NASDAQ. However, the exchange temporarily postponed the listing “due to market volatility.”

However, a separate announcement on Thursday confirms the Coinbase stock token has been launched on Binance, meaning Coinbase shares are now trading on the exchange.

How To Buy/Trade Them

To trade the tokenised stocks, here are some useful links:

At the moment, Binance only supports stock token trading with its stablecoin BUSD, for example using the token pairs COIN/BUSD.

The tokens will be pegged to the actual market price of COIN on NASDAQ. Hence, it enables crypto enthusiasts to “access” the Coinbase shares without having to trade directly on the stock exchange, which may have higher fees.

Binance Stock Tokens are zero-commission digital tokens fully backed by a depository portfolio of underlying securities that represents the outstanding tokens. Holders of stock tokens qualify for economic returns on the underlying shares, including potential dividends.

Binance
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Coinbase Crypto News Markets

Coinbase Shares Finally Debut on NASDAQ at $381 per COIN

Coinbase Shares Finally Debut on NASDAQ at $381 per COIN

Coinbase, the leading United States cryptocurrency exchange, has finally launched on NASDAQ, with a 50 percent increase in the share price.

Coinbase Valuation Has Surpassed $100 Billion

The Coinbase Shares (ticker symbol COIN) began trading on the stock exchange on Wednesday at the market price of $381 USD. This is about 50 percent higher than the reference price set by the exchange on Tuesday. At 1:31 PM, New York time, the shares’ price exploded to as high as $403 USD, bringing Coinbase’s valuation to over $100 billion shortly after the market debut.

COIN performance so far ranked the exchange as the 142nd largest company in the globe, according to data from Companies Market Cap.

We’ve had a number of ups and downs on our way here. Through luck and skill, Coinbase succeeded where many predicted it would fail. […] Today’s listing is a milestone, but it’s not as important as every new day in front of us. Coinbase has an ambitious mission: to increase economic freedom in the world.

Brian Armstrong, Co-founder, and CEO of Coinbase

Industry Reaction to COIN Listing on NASDAQ

Coinbase listing on the stock market has been one of the most-discussed topic in the cryptocurrency space, as it marks the first-ever crypto company to go public. Instead of choosing the traditional initial public offering (IPO) route, the exchange direct-listed on NASDAQ, meaning the exchange will issue its existing shares rather than offering new ones.

Many crypto enthusiasts and companies reacted positively to the development today. Binance has announced it will list the Coinbase stock tokens after the stock market debut.

The author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki, also commented on the milestone, saying that Coinbase listing will bring more credibility to the crypto market.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Institutions

MicroStrategy to Pay its Board of Directors in Bitcoin

Michael Saylor
Michael Saylor https://twitter.com/michael_saylor/status/1376173512226959363

The NASDAQ-listed business intelligence company, MicroStrategy, has revealed in a recent filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that some of its Board of Directors will receive their compensations in Bitcoin (BTC).

MicroStrategy to Pay in BTC for Board Services

In the Form 8-K document filed with the SEC, the company disclosed that its non-employee directors would receive Bitcoin as a form of compensation for Board service. Henceforth, all the payable Board fees for the non-employee directors will be converted from US dollar to the cryptocurrency and transferred to their designed wallet address, according to the modified compensation arrangements.

The development comes amid the Board’s commitment to Bitcoin. This is not surprising because MicroStrategy has shown a keen interest and support for Bitcoin over the past months.

The business intelligence company suddenly turned Bitcoin into its main reserve assets following the outbreak of coronavirus. At the time, the company’s CEO Michael Saylor noted that the cryptocurrency was a better inflation hedge and a store of value. This seems been the main reason behind the massive BTC amount purchased by the company so far.

MicroStrategy: the Largest Corporate Bitcoin Investor?

About a month ago, MicroStrategy reportedly bought 262 Bitcoins at nearly $58,000 USD. In total, MicroStrategy held about 91,579 BTC in its balance sheet as of 5 April 2021. Following the market value of BTC, these coins are worth over $5.7 billion USD, making the company on of the largest Bitcoin corporate investors.

Like MicroStrategy, many other publicly-traded companies have invested in cryptocurrencies, including Tesla, Square and others. Many industry players believe there is still more room for Bitcoin to grow, as several public companies are yet to include BTC in their balance sheet.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Institutions

Bitcoin Before and After Headlines by Major Companies

Bitcoin Before and After Headlines by Major Companies

The leading cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), faced several criticisms and condemning statements, especially from major financial companies, during its early stage. Fast forward to the present: the story has changed.

Many companies now support Bitcoin, to the extent that some have announced their intentions to debut Bitcoin and cryptocurrency investment services for their clients. This follows the massive rise in price, demand, and popularity in digital currencies over recent years.

A collection of old headlines about Bitcoin [multiple sources]

More Financial Companies Now Believe in BTC

Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Visa, PayPal and others, all had an opposing view about the leading cryptocurrency.

Back in December 2017, James Faucette, an analyst from Morgan Stanley (a leading US investment bank), said in a document that “the value of Bitcoin could actually be…zero” because it’s not a real currency, besides other reasons. However, the bank is currently counted as one of the companies pushing crypto adoption. Recently, Morgan Stanley introduced Bitcoin funds to its wealthy clients.

Jamie Dimon, the CEO at JPMorgan Chase, argued in September 2017 that the leading cryptocurrency “is a fraud” and “eventually it will be closed”. Recently, JPMorgan looked closer at cryptos, considering different USD prices Bitcoin might reach.

Goldman Sachs had outlined five reasons why Bitcoin was neither an asset nor suitable for investment in May 2020. Almost a year later, the company informed it has plans for crypto offering, following the boom in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

The former CEO of PayPal also argued in 2018 that BTC will fall because “there’s just no value there”. He added that the cryptocurrency was useless as a payment mechanism and ridiculous as a store of value. Last year however, the company launched crypto services that allow its customers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. 

Visa CEO Alfred Kelly said in 2018 that they wouldn’t process BTC transactions because it isn’t a payment system. Visa now accepts USDC as a settlement currency. Recently, they also announced plans to enable Bitcoin purchases.

Bitcoin Isn’t Dead

It’s interesting to see the opposing perspective of these companies changed about Bitcoin. It indicates that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are going mainstream and gradually becoming a widely accepted payment and asset class. The value of Bitcoin has more than doubled since those comments were made. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $63,097 USD on CoinMarketCap.

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Crypto News NFTs

McDonald’s France is Launching NFTs of its Popular Dishes

Worldwide fast-food company McDonald’s is now entering the NFT frenzy. A recent report by la Réclame informed McDonald’s France is planning to issue a limited series of digital artworks as NFTs.

The Macca’s digital art will represent a box of Chicken McNuggets, the famous Big Mac, sundae and fries. McDonald’s France intends to issue five NFTs artwork for each item, 20 in total.

McDonald’s Wants to Award NFTs to Followers

Rather than playing by the norm, where companies and individual artists create and sell NFT contents themselves, McDonald’s France wants to award the artworks to its social media followers. Hence, it is hosting a contest for its followers from April 9 to April 13, wherein the winners will be awarded the first two NFT videos shared on Instagram. It will host another contest from April 14 to April 18 for the last two NFTs shared on Twitter.

The winners can decide whether to hold or sell the content, according to the statement by Macca’s. 

We offer them in full, without placing any monetary value and with no royalty on them. […] We are giving away goodies in NFT in the same way that we could have created a limited series of 20 copies. The winner will be free to do with it whatever he wants. So if a person wants to sell it, it is possible, but it will not be our doing.

McDonald’s France wrote. 

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Bitcoin Bitcoin Mining Crypto News

Data Shows Bitcoin Miners are Making $50 Million Daily

Quantum Computers Are Not a Threat To Bitcoin (Yet), Expert Explains

Bitcoin miners have been generating much more in revenue over the recent months, according to data from Glassnode – an on-chain crypto analytics platform. The revenue usually consists of the cryptocurrency block subsidy and transaction fees. The increase in miners’ revenue follows the recent growth of Bitcoin in market value. 

BTC Miners Average $50 Million Daily

As Rafael Schultze-Kraft, the CTO of Glassnode recently shared on Twitter, Bitcoin miners have been averaging $50 million in daily revenue for the past 30 days. The current record represents over 300 percent increase compared to the record a year ago, which was around $12 million daily revenue.

Source: Glassnode

Overall, Bitcoin miners netted about $1.5 billion mining revenue in March alone, most of which came from the block subsidies paid to them.

BTC miners’ revenue has increased over the past few months. As of January, miners generated about $1.1 billion in revenue, which also represented about a 62 percent increase from the revenue in December. 

Source: Coindesk

Note that, Bitcoin block reward was recently halved to 6.25 BTC on May 11, which is 50 percent less than rewards in the months before. Yet, miners are still able to generate this much in revenue, mostly because of the increase in the price of Bitcoin.

Since Bitcoin’s third halving, the value of the cryptocurrency has increased by over 550 percent.

Most Miners are HODLing

Despite the massive increase in miners’ revenue, on-chain data from Glassnode also confirmed that they are HODLing most of their BTC rewards. For the past weeks, the miner net position change has remained positive, as Crypto News Australia reported on Wednesday. This means that BTC miners have been accumulating new Bitcoin for the stated period. This is quite bullish in the long-term, as it creates scarcity for BTC.

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Binance Crypto News

Binance Set to Acquire 20 – 30 Crypto Startups Yearly Says CEO

Binance Set to Acquire 20 - 30 Startups Yearly, Says Changpeng Zhao (CZ)

Binance is planning to acquire 20-30 cryptocurrency related startups per year according to CEO, Changpeng Zhao (CZ).

With over $800 million in revenue last year, CZ said Binance is self-sufficient and doesn’t need huge funding for growth. 

“My view is I’m not an expert in these areas, and it’s better for us to find strong teams that are already doing this well. We plan to do somewhere between 20 and 30 acquisitions a year. Most are smaller acquisitions—we don’t announce them”

CZ

Leading Exchanges Are Going Public

Leading cryptocurrency exchanges including Coinbase, are preparing to go public in the stock market. But Binance isn’t bothered by this new trend and is focusing to expand with more startup acquisitions.

“Right now, we’re not looking at going public, and we’re not looking at an IPO. We are cash-­sufficient, so we’re able to grow ourselves. We don’t need a huge amount of money, we are profitable, and we are growing,”

CZ

Binance Acquisitions So Far

Binance has already made some huge acquisitions over the past few years which include crypto exchanges, crypto wallets, crypto debit cards and dencentralised apps.

CompanyDatePriceReported
CoinMarketCap – Leading crypto price tracking website2020undisclosed ~ $400 Millionannouncement
Swipe – Crypto debit cards2020undisclosedannouncement
BxB – Korea-Based Stablecoin Company2020undisclosedannouncement
WazirX – Indias leading crypto exchange2019undisclosed ~ $5-10 Millionannouncement
DappReview – Decentralized app reviews website2019undisclosedannouncement
JEX – Derivatives exchange 2019undisclosedannouncement
Trust Wallet – Crypto wallet2018undisclosedannouncement
Binance Acquisitions
Categories
Bitcoin Bitcoin Mining Crypto News

Have Bitcoin Miners Now Stopped Selling and are HODLing Their Coins?

Bullish: Bitcoin Miner Net Position Change Still Positive

Bitcoin miners are still not selling new BTC, according to on-chain data from Glassnode, a crypto analytics company. Since the past few days, the miner net position change has remained positive, showing that miners are HOLDing their coins, despite the fact that more mining machines recently went online on the BTC network. 

Bitcoin Hash rate ATH

About a week ago, Crypto News Australia reported an increase in Bitcoin mining hash rate at 165.992 million Tera Hash per second (TH/s), which is the highest point. This simply means that more mining machines are currently active on the Bitcoin network to mine the cryptocurrency. Most of these miners, however, prefer HODLing their rewards than depositing to exchanges for selling, as seen in the BTC miner net position change.

Bitcoin: Miner Net Position Change [Glassnode]

There’s also an uptick in BTC miner unspent supply, which covers new Bitcoin that hasn’t been moved from the original mining addresses, confirming that miners are becoming strong hands. 

Bitcoin: Miner Unspent Supply [Glassnode]

The increasing price of Bitcoin could be one factor why miners prefer to HODL their rewards at this time. Miners reasonably need to sell some of their Bitcoin profits to cover the expenses incurred during operation, such as electricity bills. By not selling BTC, it seems to convey how confident and bullish they are on the cryptocurrency.

A Bullish Sign for BTC Market?

Noteworthily, miners are the gateway for new Bitcoin to enter the market. As they continue to stack more coins, the cryptocurrency might become more scarce, yet still in high demand. This is quite a healthy and bullish indicator for the Bitcoin market in the long-term, as scarcity often drives up the market value of an asset with huge demand.

Bitcoin is already becoming scarce as many investors are continually moving out their coins from exchange for HODLing. Data from CryptoQuant shows that there is less than 2.3 million BTC in all exchanges.

Bitcoin price vs reserve [CryptoQuant]
Categories
Bitcoin Crypto News Ethereum

Bitcoin and Major Altcoins Drove Crypto Market Cap to $2 Trillion Within Months

Bitcoin, Major Altcoins Drove Crypto Market Cap to $2 Trillion Within Months

It was a historical moment for cryptocurrency enthusiasts on Monday when the global crypto market capitalization crossed $2 trillion. What’s more interesting is that it only took a few months for the crypto market to reach the second $1 trillion than the initial time, which took close to a decade. 

Total market capitalisation [CoinGecko]

The growth of the cryptocurrency market results from the recent increases in the market value of top cryptocurrencies since the beginning of the year, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

Bitcoin Accounts for Over 50% of Crypto Market Cap

There are over five thousand cryptocurrencies that made up the $2 trillion market capitalization on CoinGecko. However, the first-ever cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), accounts for over 50 percent of the entire market. During press time, BTC had a total valuation of US$1.057 trillion. 

BTC has seen an exponential kind of increase since the start of 2021. A market 2021 quarter one report by Crypto News Australia informed Bitcoin was the best-performing asset with over 100 percent increase in value.

Bitcoin chart [CoinGecko]

The price of Ether, which is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, increased by over 170 percent on a year-to-date (YTD) chart. ETH has a market capitalization of $229 billion, which represents 12.4 percent of the entire crypto market cap.

Ethereum chart [CoinGecko]

A few other major altcoins to note are Bitcoin Coin (BNB), Polkadot (DOT), Cardano (ADA), and Ripple (XRP), all of which have seen a massive increase in value since 2021.

Institutions are investing in crypto

The swift growth of the cryptocurrency market is indicative of active institutional players. It’s worth mentioning that institutions played a significant role in recent rallies in the crypto market. Last year, Bitcoin skyrocketed as big-name companies, including MicroStrategy, Square, MassMutual, etc., allocated part of their cash reserve to it. 

In 2021, more institutions and deep-pocketed investors began flooding into the market, especially in BTC, such as Tesla. The growth in crypto investment products like Grayscale’s Trusts indicates the interest of risk-minded investors in the market.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Korea

South Korean BTC “Kimchi Premium” Plummets After Soaring Over 23%

South Korean BTC 'Kimchi Premium' Plummets After Soaring Over 23%

Crypto trading on South Korean exchanges began increasingly since the amended crypto regulation became effective in March. Possibly due to the crypto resurgence in the country, the price of Bitcoin significantly surged way beyond the price in the global market, as seen in the so-called “Kimchi Premium,” which is an indicator measuring the premium of the Bitcoin price across South Korea, compared to the global market.

Bitcoin Traded at Over $70,000 in Korea

Following a 23 percent increase in Kimchi premium, Bitcoin reached an all-time high (ATH) of over US$70,000 (79,422,000 won) early on Wednesday. BTC’s premium price in South Korea attracted the attention of many traders as it presented a good arbitrage trading opportunity. However, due to the newly-enacted regulation in the country, it wasn’t possible for traders to move off USD from the South Korean market. 

The new cryptocurrency regulation prohibited exchanges in the country from serving foreign users. It also introduced strict capital flow restrictions, which makes it very difficult to move large funds from the country through cryptos – a measure aimed at reducing money laundering and terrorism financing.

Kimchi Premium Drops as Bitcoin Declined to $56,000

Later on Wednesday, the Kimchi Premium began plummeting from as high as 23 percent to 15 percent within a few hours.

BTC Korea Premium Index [CryptoQuant]

Some traders blamed the recent correction in the market as a cause for the drop in the South Korean BTC premium. However, Ki-Young Ju, the CEO of CryptoQuant (an on-chain crypto analytics platform), said the premium might have dropped because some traders figured out how to cash out from the arbitrage opportunity. 

As Kimchi Premium dropped, the price of Bitcoin on the global market declined to about US$56,000.