Strengths
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the best performer for the week was Mantle, rising 43.62%.
- Michael Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital Holdings swung to a profit in the fourth quarter, bolstered by rising digital asset prices and increased trading volumes. Net income was $301.5 million, or 90 cents a share, compared with a loss of $288.88 million in the year-earlier period, writes Bloomberg.
- Investors added a net $323.8 million to iShares Bitcoin in the last session for which data is available, increasing the fund’s assets by 1.9% to $17.2 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Weaknesses
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the worst performer for the week was KuCoin, down 17.08%.
- Bored Ape Yach Club NFT #9258, once owned by American comedian Kevin Hart, was traded for around 13.26 ether in late March – equal to $46,200. Hart purchased the NFT in January 2022 for 79.5 ether, worth over $200,000 at the time, writes Bloomberg. Hart is one of the many who have experienced one of the pitfalls that come with digital trends, reports Yahoo! Tech.
- This week’s NFT sales have taken another nosedive, intensifying the downtrend that began with a 16.55% decline from March 9 to March 16, 2024. The last seven days have witnessed an even steeper drop, with NFT sales plummeting by 18.57%, according to Bitcoin.com.
Opportunities
- Steve Cohen’s Point72 Ventures is part of a group of investors betting that blockchain technology can be used in the U.S. to simplify vehicle registrations. Champ Title raised $18 million in a series C funding round led by Point72 Ventures, writes Bloomberg.
- Thanks in part to the digital asset market’s recovery, including the rebound in Bitcoin since the start of the year, many crypto companies are hiring again. Coinbase Global, which recently returned to profitability, is looking to fill 200 positions worldwide. Rival exchanges Kraken, Binance, and Gemini are hiring as well, writes Bloomberg.
- Mike Novogratz, Galaxy Digital’s founder and CEO, says Bitcoin participation is only going to increase and it will play a big role in the 2024 elections, reports Bloomberg.
Threats
- U.S. prosecutors charged KuCoin, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, and two of its founders for failing to comply with American anti-money laundering rules. Since KuCoin’s inception in September 2017, the exchange “willfully failed” to establish and maintain a program to keep the platform from being used for illicit activity, including terrorist financing, federal prosecutors in Manhattan alleged Tuesday, reports Bloomberg.
- Ripple labs should pay more than $2 billion in fines and penalties for selling its XRP token to institutional investors, the U.S. SEC told a federal judge, saying the company has increased sales of the cryptocurrency since it was sued by the regulator, writes Bloomberg.
- Short sellers are still betting billions of dollars that the rally in cryptocurrency-linked stocks, fueled by a surge in Bitcoin, will eventually end. Total short interest, or the amount that contrarian traders have pledged against crypto stocks, has increased to nearly $11 billion this year, writes Bloomberg.
