Replies to post #19368 on Bitcoin (BTCUSD)

[Investors3]

Blockchain Bites: The Rise of the Bitcoin Investment Fund
Daniel Kuhn
Feb 4, 2021 at 12:58 p.m. EST


A flurry of crypto investment funds were announced, as NYDIG predicts it will see $25 billion in bitcoin under management by year's end.

https://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-bites-the-rise-of-the-bitcoin-investment-fund

Three stories

1. Qualified investors are plowing money into cryptocurrency-focused investment funds. Yesterday, macro trader Dan Tapiero, most known for his DTAP Capital fund and eye for gold, announced a new $200 million fund called 10T Holdings that will make bids on crypto startups.

* CrossTower, a Bermuda-based capital markets firm, is launching a
bitcoin (BTC) hedge fund that will compete against Grayscale’s
Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). The firm has $20 million in assets under
management from early investors, with minimum buy-ins set at
$100,000. (Grayscale and CoinDesk are both owned by Digital Currency
Group.)

* Meanwhile, Stone Ridge Asset Management’s existing bitcoin unit,
NYDIG, could see more than $25 billion worth of bitcoin under
management, based on current demand. NYDIG currently manages $6
billion in bitcoin for 280 institutional clients, CEO Ross Stevens
said at a MicroStrategy event yesterday.

* But is this the right time to crowd into crypto? In other words, are
we at a market top? Well, famed rapper and entrepreneur LL Cool J
(along with Paul Tudor Jones and others) signed onto North Island
Ventures’ new $72 million fund.

2. PayPal’s cryptocurrency business has beat expectations, according to CEO Dan Schulman during the company’s Q4 earnings call. Launched late last year, PayPal’s (PYPL) crypto services – buying, selling and transacting – volumes have “greatly exceeded” the firm’s initial projections.

* Customers who purchased crypto through the platform have been
logging into PayPal twice as often as they were before buying
crypto, the company said in its investor update. PayPal gained 16
million new active users since launching crypto, though there may
not be a direct causal relationship.

* PayPal Chief Financial Officer John Rainey didn’t deny the
possibility of M&A deals in the crypto space while prices are high,
but called it part of a “multi-year” strategy. Notably, PayPal’s
spending in technology increased year over year by more than 30% to
$732 million.

3. Only 16 nations have specific tax policies regarding cryptocurrency, according to a U.S. Library of Congress report examining 31 different jurisdictions. The library’s law division released a report detailing the differences between how nations tax “block rewards.”

* The report found there is a specific disparity between jurisdictions
that set policies for coins acquired through mining versus staking,
with the latter often being undefined. There is also little unified
thinking on whether crypto is taxed as income, capital gains and
value-added tax for mined tokens.


* “In order for these technologies to thrive and reach their
revolutionary potential we must have the knowledge and
organizational landscape of the approaches to regulation,” U.S.
Congressman Tom Emmer said in a press release on Wednesday.

At stake

Great debate?

Earnings season is upon us, meaning the latest snapshot of publicly traded companies’ financials will come into view. This includes the handful of firms playing around with crypto. As mentioned above, PayPal has seen explosive growth in its newly launched crypto services business.

The fintech giant enabled buying, selling and holding for a number of large-cap cryptos for its 350 million users on Nov. 12, 2020. While the total number of crypto users on the platform or the profitability of this business line aren’t known, the company executives seemed pleased with the decision to enter the market.

In CoinDesk reporter Nathan DiCamillo’s terrific rundown of the company’s earnings report, he included comments from Susquehanna Financial Group regarding merchant crypto adoption on PayPal.

Comparing PayPal’s trading services to Square’s (SQ), Susquehanna noted that the latter’s bitcoin business hasn’t been all that profitable. Although revenues have been growing every quarter, Square doesn’t “really mark it up,” meaning it’s not bringing in much cash from CashApp.

It’s for this reason that Susquehanna is interested in PayPal merchants accepting crypto as part of their business. “Trading is interesting but it’s not nearly as interesting to us as a payments acceptance device. … [PayPal has] incredible merchant volume,” James Friedman, a senior fintech research analyst at Susquehanna, said.

As DiCamillo notes:

"In December 2020, Susquehanna surveyed more than 120 small to medium-sized business owners to poll their interest in adopting bitcoin payments.

"More than 70% of respondents said they would accept bitcoin for payment at checkout if PayPal or Square enabled it, but around half of respondents said they believed there would be no impact on their business if they added the feature.

"Susquehanna also surveyed more than a 100 American adults on attitudes toward cryptocurrencies… [and] found that nearly half of respondents would not purchase a product or service with cryptocurrency, while 5.5% of them would do so 10 or more times per year."

The sample size is small, though largely matches the sentiment about bitcoin. Although initially figured as a “peer-to-peer” cash system, in Satoshi’s white paper bitcoin is increasingly seen as a store of value.

Many of the market entrants in 2020 that made headline splashes pointed to bitcoin’s prospects as “digital gold.” Bluford Putnam, chief economist and managing director of CME Group, for instance, went on record saying bitcoin is an “emerging competitor” to gold.

For some bitcoin OGs or outside watchers this trend could subvert the aspects that make bitcoin such a powerful tool for financial freedom.

Responding to Francis Pouliot, CEO of Bull Bitcoin, who said “The next attack [on bitcoin] could very well come from self-proclaimed Bitcoin Maximalists under the cover of the corporate store of value narrative,” Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal noted:

“This has been my theory as well. With Bitcoin becoming increasingly corporate, some players in the space may find the cypherpunk/censorship-resistance angle to be an embarrassing distraction.”

“‘Why have private wallets, when Bitcoin can be a SoV in an ETF?’” he said. (The U.S. has yet to accept a bitcoin exchange-traded fund application.)

As mentioned before, PayPal doesn’t let users move bitcoin they’ve purchased off its platform. This introduces a middleman to what exists on its own as a self-contained and uncensorable payments system.

It should be said the bitcoin codebase has been running for 12 years, without downtime, allowing anyone to transact with anyone, without exception. But the corporate environment around bitcoin is still emerging and it’s unknown the total impact it may have on the ecosystem. The tension between corporate actors and a fully decentralized system will be a thing to watch.

Market intel

Yesterday, Ethereum miners earned $27.75 million in transaction fees as the blockchain’s native currency, ether (ETH) rallied. The average transaction fee was as high as $23.43, the highest it’s ever been (it’s never been above $20, in fact), according to crypto data provider Blockchair. This means it’s more expensive than ever to actually run decentralized applications or send funds using Ethereum – a blessing and curse, experts say.

* “Ethereum miners have been a primary beneficiary of the fee spike,”
CoinDesk’s Will Foxley wrote. The industry earned some $830 million
in ether last month with 40% attributed from fees alone.

Quick bites

* “There’s a macroeconomic wind blowing – big – it’s gonna impact $400
trillion of capital,” a vibing Michael Saylor told a corporate
audience at MicroStrategy’s annual conference.

* Elon Musk’s short Twitter reprieve ended with another DOGE meme.

* Miami’s mayor announced a flurry of crypto-related policies the city
is considering.

* Myanmar’s government is meddling in the internet.

* China leads Africa’s digital currency race. (CoinDesk Opinion)

Who won Crypto Twitter? [click on link]

[Welcome2Pinkyland]

$BITCOIN ‘...the ongoing Bitcoin upsurge is likely just getting started.’

[Investors3]

A $50K Bitcoin Possible as MasterCard, BNY Mellon Announces Crypto Integration
February 11 2021 - 08:00AM
NEWSBTC

Bitcoin edged higher on Thursday after traders realized MasterCard’s plans to integrate cryptocurrencies into its traditional payment services later this year. The credit card giant’s revelation came days after Tesla, a Fortune 500 carmaker, showed a $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in its balance sheets this Monday, further asserting that it would start accepting payments […]

https://ih.advfn.com/stock-market/COIN/BTCUSD/crypto-news/84310664/a-50k-bitcoin-possible-as-mastercard-bny-mellon

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/a-50k-bitcoin-possible-as-mastercard-bny-mellon-announces-crypto-integration/

[Investors3]

BlackRock CIO says the asset management giant is 'dabbling' in bitcoin by Aislinn Keely
February 17, 2021, 10:00AM EST · 1 min read

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/95156/blackrock-cio-bitcoin-dabbling?utm_source=coinbase&utm_medium=rss

Asset management giant BlackRock is taking notice of bitcoin as investors look for alternative stores of value, according to chief investment officer Rick Rieder.

Rieder commented on BlackRock's interest during an interview with CNBC's Squawk Box Wednesday morning. He said the asset management giant "is starting to dabble" in the cryptocurrency, but did not elaborate further on what that means for its operations.

Rieder said that interest in bitcoin is growing as people look for alternative stores of value. "My sense is the technology has evolved and the regulation has evolved to the point where a number of people find it should be part of the portfolio, so that's what's driving the price up," he commented.

BlackRock is not yet making any recommendations surrounding bitcoin, according to Rieder, but since many are holding more cash, allocating some portion to crypto "seems to make some sense." However, he remained skeptical of the popular theory that everyone should put one percent of their assets into bitcoin.

"I wouldn't put a number on the percentage allocation one should have, it depends on what the rest of your portfolio looks like," he said.

As previously reported, regulatory filings indicated that certain funds it operates were on the cusp of buying bitcoin futures.

[Investors3]

Bitcoin Outflows on Coinbase Suggest Institutions Are Buying the Dip
By Scott Chipolina
2 min read
Feb 25, 2021

13,000 Bitcoin has been moved to multiple custody wallets, implying investors are still bullish on the cryptocurrency.

In brief

* 13,000 Bitcoin has been transferred from Coinbase.

* This indicates that Bitcoin's institutional investors are still
bullish on Bitcoin.

Around 13,000 Bitcoin was withdrawn from Coinbase yesterday and moved to multiple custody wallets, according to data from Cryptoquant.

This indicates that institutional investors are buying Bitcoin just below the $50,000 mark. It also suggests that they were neither deterred by the higher prices nor by the recent 10% dip.


The Bitcoin was transferred from a total of seven different Coinbase Pro (the firm’s institutional exchange) wallets. The largest withdrawal was for a total of 2,768 BTC, and the smallest withdrawal for a total of 579 BTC, worth $139 million and $29 million respectively.

Cryptoquant CEO Ki Young Ju said that it appeared likely that the funds went to several Coinbase custody wallets. He added, “This is the strongest bullish signal I've ever seen.”

This is the first time that such large outflows have been seen at these higher prices. The last two times large withdrawals like this occurred on Coinbase were on January 31, and February 5, 2021. On those dates, Bitcoin’s price was $33,000 and $37,000 respectively.

Bitcoin’s institutional investors remain as bullish as ever on the long term future of the cryptocurrency. On February 8, Tesla announced a $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin, which then went on to break an all-time high.

Earlier this week, MicroStrategy continued its seemingly never ending stockpiling of Bitcoin, announcing a further $1 billion purchase of the cryptocurrency. The firm now holds about $4.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in total.

“Bitcoin is standing on the precipice of becoming a consensus play for public companies to hold it on their balance sheets,” Moskovski Capital CEO Lex Moskovski told Decrypt. “This trend has been started by Microstrategy, Tesla, and Square but we still need two or three companies to validate it.”

He added, “This withdrawal can potentially belong to one of these corporations, which will be huge.”

https://decrypt.co/59431/bitcoin-outflows-on-coinbase-suggest-institutions-are-buying-the-dip

[Investors3]

Norwegian energy giant Aker forms bitcoin unit, billionaire owner says BTC could be worth 'millions of dollars'
by Yogita Khatri

Quick Take

* Norway-based oil and gas giant Aker has formed a new unit dedicated to
investing in bitcoin and related projects.

* Aker chairman Kjell Inge Røkke said, “bit­coin may still go to zero,”
but it could be worth “mil­lions of dollars” one day.

Norway-based oil and gas giant Aker has established a new unit dedicated to investing in bitcoin and related projects in the ecosystem.

The unit, Seetee, has a cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion of 500 mil­lion Norwegian kroner (around $58 million) and will keep its liquid assets in bitcoin, Aker announced Monday.

"We aim to in­crease [the capitalization] sig­nif­i­cant­ly over time as we gain ex­pe­ri­ence and iden­ti­fy ex­cit­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties," said Aker chairman Kjell Inge Røkke in a letter to shareholders hosted on Seetee's website. Røkke is a billionaire investor and one of the top 10 richest men in Norway.

See­tee's strat­e­gy is three­fold. It will invest in bit­coin as its trea­sury as­set, invest in bitcoin projects and companies, and set up bitcoin mining operations. To that end, See­tee has also partnered with industry firm Blockstream to navigate the space.

As for its investments, See­tee could particularly back projects focused on mi­cro­pay­ments since Røkke is interested in them. "I'm fas­ci­nat­ed by the prospect of bitcoin Light­ning wal­lets that may en­able in­stant cred­it via mi­cro­pay­ments with­out the need to of­fer per­son­al in­for­ma­tion that my coun­ter­part can mon­e­tise with­out ap­proval or com­pen­sa­tion," said Røkke.

The billionaire investor appears to be betting big on bitcoin. He said, "bit­coin may still go to zero," but it can also become "the core of a new mon­e­tary ar­chi­tec­ture. If so, one bit­coin may be worth mil­lions of dollars."

The establishment of See­tee is the re­sult of a "long and fun­da­men­tal dis­cus­sion about val­ue," said Røkke, who believes bitcoin is superior to cash and is even better than gold.

"We are used to think­ing that cash is risk-free. But it's not," he said. "It's im­plic­it­ly taxed by in­fla­tion at a small rate every year. It adds up." As for bitcoin vs. gold, he said: "Bit­coin is like gold, but bet­ter."

"Peo­ple who know the most about bit­coin be­lieve its fu­ture suc­cess is near­ly in­evitable. Where­as the oth­er camp thinks that its fail­ure is equal­ly cer­tain. Sta­tus quo is not pos­si­ble," Røkke concluded.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/97520/aker-forms-bitcoin-unit-seetee-billionaire-owner-btc-could-millions-dollars?utm_source=coinbase&utm_medium=rss