Bitcoin Breaches ATH as Coinbase Goes Public on Nasdaq
Welcome to the seventh edition of Shrimpy’s weekly newsletter, a place for staying up to date on the latest trends, news, and events in the cryptocurrency industry.
Digital assets evolve and move faster compared to any other market. For those who do not have time to constantly scroll Crypto Twitter, we wrote a special weekly update covering everything major that happened this week.
Summary
Coinbase finally went public on Nasdaq under the COIN ticker
Bitcoin reached a new all-time high at $64,890 after three months of consolidation
Sergey Nazarov announced Chainlink 2.0
The U.S. Senate selected Gary Gensler as the next SEC Chairman
Galaxy Digital filed yet another Bitcoin ETF application
Ethereum launched the Berlin Hard Fork
The EU plans to settle and trade digital bonds with blockchain technology
ConsenSys raised $65 million in a funding round joined by major banks and DeFi firms
Coinbase goes public
Coinbase was the highlight of Nasdaq’s opening bell on Wednesday as the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange officially began trading under the COIN ticker.
The company’s first day was incredibly volatile, as COIN opened at $381 and rose to $429 before ending the session at $328. Despite the fact that Nasdaq gave Coinbase a reference price of $250, no trades were executed at that price.
Coinbase’s direct listing has positively affected cryptocurrency markets all across the board, with both Bitcoin and Ethereum hitting all-time highs.
Bitcoin reaches new all-time high
After consolidating for nearly three months, Bitcoin broke its former all-time high and established a new one after reaching $64,890 on Wednesday. Following bullish news set by Coinbase’s listing on the stock market, buyers have finally stepped in and took control over the market.
Experts suggest that Bitcoin entered another price discovery mode and that Bitcoin could potentially continue its path if support levels around $60,000 hold up.
Sergey Nazarov announces Chainlink 2.0
Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov released a new version of the decentralized oracle’s whitepaper and announced several upcoming features which are a part of the project’s next iteration.
Decentralized oracle networks represent the biggest feature publicly announced so far. They are off-chain second-layer networks, meaning that they store and compute data outside blockchain networks before transferring the final information to oracles. These networks have the potential to significantly decrease the cost of requesting oracle data.
U.S. Senate votes for Gary Gensler as next SEC Chairman
Voting results from the U.S. senate reveal that Gary Gensler is the next chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Gensler was originally nominated by President Joe Biden in January, and he previously ran the Commodity Futures Trading Commission).
Since the SEC is a serious regulator that can disrupt the crypto market, investors are waiting to find out whether the new Chairman is acceptive of cryptocurrencies or not. Last month, Gensler complimented the innovative side of digital assets but brought attention to the issues that new investors face.
Galaxy Digital files for Bitcoin ETF
Financial services firm Galaxy Digital has filed an application to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a Bitcoin ETF. If approved, it would be the first investment vehicle of this sort in the U.S. market.
The SEC currently reviews two similar applications, and in the meantime, an additional six companies have filed a request. However, it is uncertain whether the regulator will approve the request, given that it has denied dozens of Bitcoin ETFs in the past.
Ethereum team launches Berlin Hard Fork
The Ethereum developer team launched the Berlin hard fork on Thursday. The new network upgrade will supposedly improve the state of gas fees and enable new transaction types.
The upgrade consists of four separate Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) in total, which primarily brings changes to transactions. However, users still anticipate a much more important network upgrade called the London hard fork, which brings controversial changes to Ethereum’s fee structure.
This week’s bearish news
1. Bitcoin funds stolen in Bitfinex move during Coinbase listing. $623 million worth of Bitcoin from the 2016 Bitfinex hack moved on Wednesday as all eyes were set on Coinbase’s Nasdaq listing.
Hackers have highly likely decided to move their funds during the big event to attract as least attention as possible.
The new transaction accounts for only 10% of the total stolen funds.
2. Mike Novogratz warns against a possible pullback. Famous Bitcoin bull and Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz warned the market against a possible ‘washout’ as a result of heightened frenzy.
Novogratz attributed his beliefs to a price spike in “weird coins” such as Dogecoin and XRP.
Despite calling for a pullback, Novogratz believes that a crash will only last temporarily.
3. Open Ethereum encounters error after Berlin Hard Fork. A consensus issue arose on Open Ethereum after the new hard fork’s launch, which resulted in 12% of Ethereum’s nodes being affected by the bug.
Developers have resolved the issues several hours after the first report
Coinbase decided to disable all ETH withdrawals before the bug was fixed
The EU plans to settle and trade digital bonds using blockchain technology
According to a report from Bloomberg, the European Union plans to settle, trade, and sell digital bots using blockchain technology. The European Investment Bank (EIB) has tasked Goldman Sachs, Societe Generale, and Banco Santander to assess the possibility of processing digital bonds using the disruptive technology.
The report notes that several investor meetings will take place starting from April 15. However, Bloomberg’s source has no information as to when the digital bonds could launch.
ConsenSys raises $65 million from JPMorgan, UBS, and Mastercard
Ethereum-focused software firm ConsenSys has raised $65 million during an investment round joined by JPMorgan, UBS, Mastercard, and several firms from the DeFi sector. These DeFi firms include Alameda Research, Filecoin’s Protocol Labs, The LAO, DeFi’s Maker Foundation, and five other entities. According to ConsenSys, some firms have decided to join the funding round by investing via DAI and USDC stablecoins.
Quote of the week
The Good News
By the end of Q1, investors have staked $9 billion worth of assets in Ethereum 2.0.
The fourth-largest bank in Thailand is exploring an entrance into the DeFi market by launching a project named Kubix.
Telegram is coming close to repay all of its TON investors who have participated in a controversial $1.7 billion ICO.
The Bad News
Lending protocol Celsius has suffered a data breach after which users have reported receiving spam emails and phishing text.
Mining machine producer Canaan reported a 75% drop in revenue for Q4 as a supply-chain disruption prevented it from capitalizing on Bitcoin’s bull run.
Bitcoin-focused funds met a sharp decline in new inflows, which may indicate that institutional investors are interested in other digital assets.
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