Magnet Crypto Review | The weekly roundup of all things blockchain

Issue #74

Written by Magnet Capital | Jan 2, 2024 1:14:00 AM

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market is $US1.72T, down (-1.5%) from last week.

Below is the weekly performance of the top crypto assets. 

News Headline Highlights

  • On the 29th of December, most spot BTC ETF applicants filed their final S-1’s (prospectus’). It is now expected that the SEC approves these applications in the next 9 days. Most notably from the filings:
    • Many named Authorised Participants (APs) they’ve entered into agreements with, the final requirement before launch.
    • Named APs include JP Morgan, Jane Street, Virtu and Cantor Fitzgerald. Magnet quick take: It’s pretty comical to see JP Morgan as a named and signed AP for BlackRock and Invesco/Galaxy given Jamie Dimon’s vocal bashing of Bitcoin. As the saying goes, watch what they do, not what they say…
    • Bitwise has announced a $200m seed from an unnamed source, significantly more than the $10m BlackRock has announced.
    • Many shared their fee schedules, with fees varying from 0.39% to 0.8% of AUM.
      • Galaxy/Invesco announced zero fees for the first 6 months.
      • Fidelity came in with the lowest Sponsor fee of 0.39%.
      • BlackRock have not shared their fee schedule yet.
  • The US Securities and Commission Exchange (SEC) may notify spot Bitcoin ETF applicants of approval as early as Wednesday (tomorrow!) or Thursday, ahead of a possible Jan. 10 launch, according to a Reuters report.
  • Van Eck joined Bitwise and Hashdex in the Bitcoin ETF marketing race, launching their own commercial last week.
  • MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, added another 14,620 BTC, for ~$615.7m, in December. MicroStrategy now owns almost 1% of all BTC in circulation, valued at nearly $8B.
  • Barry Silbert resigned as chairman of Grayscale, the world’s largest crypto asset manager, and will be replaced by Mark Shifke. Magnet quick take - this has mostly been interpreted as a strategic move to improve the odds of Grayscale being approved to launch a BTC ETF in the US. Barry is also the CEO of Digital Currency Group (DCG) who are currently under investigation by the New York Attorney General for fraud.
  • Sam Bankman-Fried has had his remaining charges dropped, including foreign bribery and bank fraud charges. Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., along with Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer and much of the crypto community, have condemned the decision by prosecutors not to try Bankman-Fried on a charge of unlawful political donations.

 Crypto Asset Project Updates

  • Vitalik Buterin shared an updated Ethereum Roadmap for 2024.
  • Orbit Bridge, a cross-chain bridge protocol, was hacked for $81.5m. In five separate transactions, the Orbit Bridge sent $50m in stablecoins (30m USDT, 10m DAI, and 10 million USDC), 231 wBTC (~$10m), and 9,500 ETH (~$21.5m).

Regulation Station

The Weekly Deal Room

  • CESS, a decentralised storage protocol, raised $8m in a private round from HTX Ventures, Infinity Ventures Crypto, DWF Labs and others.
  • EclipseFi, a hub for interchain token launches, raised $1.9m in a private round from Big Brain Holdings, Rarestone Capital, Momentum 6 and others.
  • BRC20.com, a bitcoin token standard infrastructure project, raised $1.5m in a private round led by UTXO Management.

Metric of the Week

Over 80% of all BTC in circulation has not moved in the last 6 months, marking a new all time high for passively held BTC.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine