Good morning. There’s a new U.S. President. So far, he has ordered a freeze on all Trump-era rules that have not yet taken effect so his administration can review them first.
What does it mean for crypto? The FInancial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has proposed a rule that would require banks and effectively all U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange to keep records and identity of customers engaging in transactions with so-called “unhosted wallets” (think your own Ledger or Trezor). So before one can send bitcoin from Coinbase to another person’s Trezor, the sender must first disclose who owns the Trezor. We discussed that here. The rule could have global implications, because crypto is global. So for now, this will not take into effect until reviewed.
Welcome to Thursday Thoughts, part of our new series: BitPinas Daily. We will look at the price of Bitcoin, Ethereum and the major cryptocurrencies. Crypto is global, but sometimes news that matters happens while we sleep. So we bring to you what’s happening in our space here and abroad.
Market Price as of January 21, 2021:
| Bitcoin | $35,587 | -1.43% |
| Ethereum | $1,381.00 | -2.48% |
| Tether | $0.99 | 0.00% |
| Polkadot | $17.91 | +8.55% |
| XRP | $0.296078 | -0.53% |
| SLP | $0.013 | -1.8% |
Bitcoin closed January 20, 2021, at $35,587 per BTC. We’re down 7% in the last 7 days and up 19% since the year began. This is 15% below the previous all-time high of $41,940, which was hit on Jan. 8, 2021.
Bitcoin’s market capitalization stands today at $646,651,518,781 which is 63.6% of the entire cryptocurrency market. The entire crypto market, by the way, now has a market cap of $1,016,666,356,032 (-3.4%).
On the table above, there’s the cryptocurrency SLP. If you wonder what that is, check out this article: Playing Axie Infinity vs Minimum Basic Salary in the Philippines.
Table of Contents.
Hedge Fund
BlackRock gives 2 funds go-ahead to invest in bitcoin futures
(By Danny Nelson, Coindesk) BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $7.81 trillion under management, appears to have granted at least two of its funds the ability to invest in bitcoin futures. Prospectus documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday indicate that BlackRock Global Allocation Fund Inc. and BlackRock Funds V are at least eyeing bitcoin. They both include the world’s oldest cryptocurrency on their lists of derivative products cleared for use. Before Wednesday, the investments giant has never so much as mentioned “bitcoin” in any of its regulatory filings. But that appears to be changing: “Certain Funds may engage in futures contracts based on bitcoin,” the prospectus documents state.
DeFI
Yearn.finance team proposes $225 million YFI token mint’
(By Andrew Thurman, Cointelegraph) After a week of at times rancorous debate, an 11-author team of Yearn.finance core contributors and community members have submitted today a proposal to increase the supply of YFI by 6666 tokens — a quantity worth roughly $225 million at today’s prices. The proposal is the culmination of a wider discussion about developer incentives for decentralized finance’s (DeFi) original yield vault project. While the Twitter discourse revolved around memes and namecalling, on Yearn’s governance forum debate of the pros and cons of a mint were far more sophisticated.
CBDC
Banque de France tests ‘whole lifecycle of CBDC’ in landmark transaction
(By Ryan Weeks, The Block) France’s central bank has completed a transaction using its own digital currency, a so-called central bank digital currency (CBDC), for the first time. It’s the latest advance in the area of wholesale CBDCs, which in the future might let banks settle large transactions more efficiently. A number of central banks around the world have been experimenting with bank-to-bank digital currency systems for the past several years.
Bitcoin Whales
Number of bitcoin whales explodes to all-time high
(By Liam Frost, Decrypt) According to crypto metrics platform Glassnode, there are currently nearly 2,440 addresses that have 1,000 or more BTC. However, it’s impossible to say whether all of these are different users due to the blockchain’s inherent anonymity. (Some people may have multiple addresses and some addresses may hold Bitcoin owned by multiple people).
What else is happening
- Bitcoin sells off on bearish sentiment, Yellen worries
- Some institutional investors taking profit as Bitcoin retraces
- DeFi payments protocol Celo readies launch of a euro-pegged stablecoin
- Synthetix introduces Layer 2 Staking on Optimism
This article is published on BitPinas: Thursday Thoughts: World’s Largest Asset Manager BlackRock to Invest in Bitcoin Futures
