Strengths
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the best performer for the week was Flare, rising 29.21%.
- Global financial services company Moody’s, known for its credit ratings, said that its growing adoption of blockchain-based tokenized funds is raising the efficiency of investing in assets like government bonds and signals “untapped market potential,” writes Bloomberg.
- BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF passed the $1 billion mark in investor inflows, reports Bloomberg, making it the first in the group of 11 new ETFs directly holding the cryptocurrency to surpass the milestone since the funds started trading last week
Weaknesses
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the worst performer for the week was Optimism, down 23.37%.
- Venezuela is ending its Petro cryptocurrency on Monday, more than five years after it was launched, according to multiple reports citing a message displayed on the Patria Platform, the only website where the Petro was tradeable, writes Bloomberg.
- MicroStrategy’s co-founder Michael Saylor has been selling company shares leading up to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of ETFs investing directly into Bitcoin. The company’s executive chairman sold between 3,882 and 5,000 shares on certain days between January 2 and January 10 when the SEC made the announcement. It is the first time he has sold shares in nearly 12 years, writes Bloomberg.
Opportunities
- The crypto exchange Kraken is set to launch a new custody product this quarter just as U.S. ETFs investing directly into Bitcoin take off. The SEC approved almost a dozen spot Bitcoin ETFs which will need to custody billions of dollars of assets, according to Bloomberg.
- Crypto mining firm Core Scientific Inc. won court approval to exit bankruptcy and implement a restructuring plan that trims about $400 million in debt from its balance sheet and fully repays company creditors, writes Bloomberg.
- A Hong Kong financial services company aims to start an exchange-traded fund investing directly in Bitcoin this quarter as the city pushes ahead with efforts to develop a digital-asset hub, writes Bloomberg.
Threats
- FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents are attempting to have the lawsuit filed by the exchange against them dismissed, arguing that they were not involved in allegedly fraudulent transfers or breaches of fiduciary duties, reports Bloomberg.
- According to Bloomberg, former U.S. President Donald Trump came out against the idea of a central bank-issued digital dollar, saying he wants to “protect Americans from government tyranny.” He added, “such a currency would give our federal government absolute control over your money. They could take your money and you wouldn’t even know it is gone.”
Bitcoin dropped 2.5% to $41,500 as of noon on Thursday, following the recent hype surrounding the approval of the spot ETFs. Shares of cryptocurrency-linked stocks also fell following Bitcoin’s drop.
