Strengths
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the best performer for the week was Popcat, rising 63.18%.
- Binance Holdings is hiring 1,000 people this year with many earmarked for compliance roles, writes Bloomberg, as the crypto exchange’s annual spending to meet regulatory requirements, including U.S. oversight under a plea deal, tops $200 million. CEO Richard Teng, who is visiting the U.S. to talk to monitors and officials, outlined the employment goals.
- Coinbase Global Inc. announced the expansion of its crypto services into Canada, partnering with local banks to offer seamless integration with Canadian payment systems, aiming to capture a larger share of the growing North American crypto market, according to Bloomberg.
Weaknesses
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the worst performer for the week was Zcash down 4.16%.
- Bitcoin and the wider crypto market are nursing sharp losses for the month so far even as global stocks push back toward record highs after shaking off a growth scare over the U.S. economy. The largest digital asset has fallen about 9% in August, reports Bloomberg, lagging a gain of almost 1% in MSCI Inc.’s world share index as well as a jump in gold to all-time highs.
- Hong Kong’s push for a digital-asset hub faces growing pains amid uncertainty over whether 11 crypto exchanges will all achieve full licenses after earlier receiving initial approvals. The city’s Securities and Futures Commission found unsatisfactory practices at some of the “deemed-to-be-licensed” platforms during inspections, Bloomberg reports.
Opportunities
- Nigeria’s top finance regulator plans to license providers of virtual assets including cryptocurrencies to tap opportunities and protect investors as adoption rates surge in the nation, writes Bloomberg. The Abuja-based SEC is looking to issue its first licenses for digital service and tokenized assets this month.
- Bitcoin mining company Bitfarms agreed to acquire Stronghold Digital Mining for about $125 million in stock while it fends off a takeover attempt by Riot Platforms, according to an announcement this week. Stronghold shareholders will receive 2.52 Bitfarms shares for each share held.
- A signal from the Bitcoin derivative market points to the growing risk of a “short squeeze” that can stoke sharp rallies in the largest digital asset. The metric is the funding rate for Bitcoin perpetual futures, which helps to gauge how bullish or bearish speculators are, reports Bloomberg.
Threats
- Miami Heat basketball star Jimmy Butler and YouTube influencer Ben Armstrong agreed to pay a combined $340,000 to resolve claims that they helped dupe Binance Holdings customers into buying unregistered securities, according to an article published by Bloomberg.
- Blockchain security platform Scam Sniffer reported that a crypto trader lost $55.47 million in DAI stablecoin to a phishing attack, Bloomberg reports. According to the firm, the trader lost their assets after mistakenly transferring ownership of the collateralized debt position on DeFi Saver Proxy to a malicious wallet.
- The U.S. Department of Justice has intensified its investigation into Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, focusing on potential bank fraud, which could lead to heightened regulatory scrutiny across the entire stablecoin market, Bloomberg reports.
