Ethereum’s Sentiment Drops as FOMC Meeting Nears

After experiencing considerable momentum, Ethereum’s sentiment has dropped as the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting edges closer, according to Santiment.

The market insight provider explained:

“Ethereum had an up and down Sunday, jumping above $1,640 before dipping back down to $1,540. The trading crowd continues to not believe the hype, and is expecting prices to fall heading into the FOMC meeting. ETH should continue to stay volatile.”

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Source: Santiment 

As part of the Federal Reserve (Fed), the FOMC determines the direction monetary policy will take, and it has resorted to interest rate hikes in the recent past. For instance, the interest rate was increased by 75 basis points (bps) last month, the highest surge in 28 years.

With the FOMC meeting slated for July 27, all indicators are that the interest rate might experience a similar hike. Mike McGlone, a senior Bloomberg Intelligence commodity strategist, recently stated:

“The Fed is using a sledgehammer on commodities and risk assets. Down about 20% since the June 75 bps rate-hike, the aftermath of another 75 in July may be similar for the three C’s – crude oil, copper, and corn. The stock market may be more vulnerable than crude.”

Meanwhile, crypto analyst Ali Martinez noted that Ethereum should hold $1,550 to avoid a pullback because it is a significant support level. He pointed out:

“Transaction history shows that Ethereum formed a significant demand wall at $1,550, where more than 586,000 addresses had previously purchased nearly 5.1 million ETH. Failing to hold above this vital support level could trigger a correction to $1,300.”

The second-largest cryptocurrency was down by 4.95% in the last 24 hours, with a price of $1,522 during intraday trading, according to CoinMarketCap

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Crypto Exchange Huobi Receives Virtual-asset License in Dubai

Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi has received provisional approval from the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), joining other crypto exchanges to expand its footprints in the gulf-nation.

The company plans to expand its operations in the UAE and expand its team in Dubai, hoping to gain a foothold in the emerging UAE market.

The latest license comes after other key competitors acquired a similar permit from Dubai’s authority, such as cryptocurrency platform OKX (formerly known as OKEx), which received a temporary virtual asset license from Dubai authorities. The exchange plans to establish a regional centre in the city., allowing the company to offer a “full suite of virtual asset exchange products and services” to clients in the gulf-nation.

The Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) has granted it a provisional virtual asset (VA) license, allowing it to offer targeted crypto products to accredited investors. While the move complements the exchange’s efforts to go global, highlighting many aspects of its compliance capabilities, it says more about VARA’s benevolent and forward-looking stance.

With the permission of the new license, the foundation has been laid for the trading platform to establish a regional headquarters of the exchange in Dubai and develop a more comprehensive business in the region.

Zhang Li, CFO of Huobi Group, said: “The Dubai Government is committed to turning the Emirates into a global hub for the future digital economy and being at the forefront of financial innovation. Huobi is optimistic about the city’s potential and the future opportunities it offers.”

In a statement by Huobi, the spot and over-the-counter (OTC) services will be aimed at professional investors. These services will be “expanded to a limited number of accredited investors and professional financial service providers.”

Likewise, HBIT Inc, one of the subsidiaries of Huobi Technologies, has received the Money Services Business Registration License (MSB) issued by the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Bureau (FinCEN).

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1 Billion Crypto Users Projected by 2030, Study Shows

According to a joint study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bitget, and Foresight Ventures, the total number of cryptocurrency users will reach 1 billion by 2030.

The research data shows that retail investors only put 4% of their assets, a total of $300 million, into the crypto market.

For institutional investors, 2% of the portfolio is devoted to the crypto market.

The research shows that most investors allocate 25% of their funds to stocks. Only 0.3% of total personal wealth is distributed across asset classes.

However, thanks to the development of the Internet, the total number of cryptocurrency users is expected to reach 1 billion by 2030.

There are currently only about 200 million users of cryptocurrencies in the global market.

The study also noted that hedge funds and venture capital firms are the most willing to invest in the crypto market.

VCs have been keeping a close eye on the crypto space, given the massive capital inflows. For example, they invested $30 billion in 2021. From the fourth quarter of 2020 to the end of 2021, the exposure of hedge funds and venture capital firms nearly doubled to $70 billion.

Venture Capital (VC) firms continue penetrating the crypto sector, given that they have pumped in $17 billion so far this year.

In May, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase Global Inc, also said that within the next decade, there will be as many as 1 billion cryptocurrency users.

“My guess is that in 10-20 years, we’ll see a substantial portion of GDP happening in the crypto economy,” Armstrong said.

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Metaverse Giants Collaborate to Form DAO Metaverse Alliance

The blockchain metaverse giants have collaborated to form the DAO Metaverse called “Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3” (OMA3), which aims to bring together multiple virtual worlds to solve the key challenges of the metaverse and maintain users’ freedom of information.

Game developers joining the consortium of the Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3 include Animoca Brands, a developer of games and other applications for smartphones; blockchain-based game Alien Worlds; a consumer-focused flow blockchain product made for fun and games Dapper Labs; Decentraland; Star Atlas, and The Sandbox, etc.

OMA3 is established on a competitive Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) structure, incentivizing the entire industry to share data ownership and attract user interaction from a more transparent and objective perspective.

The DAO, a form of investor-oriented venture capital fund, aims to provide enterprises with new decentralized business models. Community members come together and have the power to vote on governance decisions, create flexible workflows and allocate resources, enabling new decentralized business models for the entire team.

The official statement states: “We believe in a metaverse without restraining walls, where individual platforms are interconnected and fully interoperable. To realize this goal of an open metaverse, we are announcing the creation of OMA3 and inviting all blockchain-based metaverse companies to join.”

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Metaverse Giants Collaborated to Form DAO Metaverse Alliance

The blockchain metaverse giants have collaborated to form the DAO Metaverse called “Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3” (OMA3), which aims to bring together multiple virtual worlds to solve the key challenges of the metaverse and maintain users’ freedom of information.

Game developers joining the consortium of the Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3 include Animoca Brands, a developer of games and other applications for smartphones; blockchain-based game Alien Worlds; a consumer-focused flow blockchain product made for fun and games Dapper Labs; Decentraland; Star Atlas, and The Sandbox, etc.

OMA3 is established on a competitive Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) structure, incentivizing the entire industry to share data ownership and attract user interaction from a more transparent and objective perspective.

The DAO, a form of investor-oriented venture capital fund, aims to provide enterprises with new decentralized business models. Community members come together and have the power to vote on governance decisions, create flexible workflows and allocate resources, enabling new decentralized business models for the entire team.

The official statement states: “We believe in a metaverse without restraining walls, where individual platforms are interconnected and fully interoperable. To realize this goal of an open metaverse, we are announcing the creation of OMA3 and inviting all blockchain-based metaverse companies to join.”

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Barclays to Buy Stakes in Crypto Firm Copper

Barclays Plc is buying a stake in Copper.co, a UK company specializing in cryptocurrency custody and trading. Under the deal, the UK-based bank is among several new investors joining a funding round for Copper.

Bloomberg media reported on Sunday, citing sources that Barclays is expected to invest a few millions of dollars as part of the round. The fundraising is expected to be completed within days.

Sophie Arnold, head of communications for Copper, confirmed the development but said: “As the funding round is ongoing, we’re unable to comment on this report.”

Copper offers custody, prime broking and settlement services to institutional investors (such as digital currency asset managers, hedge funds, and family offices) investing funds into cryptocurrencies.

Launched in 2018 by Dmitry Tokarev, Copper has drawn investors from big names in the global venture capital sector, such as LocalGlobe, Dawn Capital and MMC Ventures.

In May last year, Copper raised $50 million in a Series B funding round co-led by investors like Dawn Capital and Target Global, joined by LocalGlobe, Illuminate Financial, and MMC Ventures.

Facing Challenges

Although Copper assigned former UK Chancellor Philip Hammond among its advisers in October last year, the crypto firm has continued to face frustrations from the UK financial regulators. Early this month, the UK-headquartered digital asset custody technology provider failed to secure a crypto asset registration from the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

On June 29, the custody startup was dropped from a list of FCA temporary registrants as it was one of the firms considered to lack appropriate systems and controls to counter the risk of being misused for financial crime.

The difficult decision prompted Copper to establish a hub in Switzerland instead after it was accepted as a member of the Swiss Financial Services Standard Association.

Earlier this year, Copper targeted a valuation of at least $3 billion in its latest funding raise but has scaled that back because of the rising crisis in the broader crypto industry.

Crypto firms have had a challenging year, and some have faced risks associated with bankruptcies as major digital assets such as Bitcoin have crashed along with other risk assets globally.

In recent weeks, several major market players, including Three Arrows Capital and Celsius, have filed for bankruptcy, a horrible situation that has undermined development prospects and confidence in the industry’s previously breakneck growth.

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Blockchain Infrastructure Firm Chain Completes Acquisition of MDT for $100m

Blockchain infrastructure firm Chain has completed the acquisition of Measurable Data Token (MDT), despite the slump in cryptocurrency prices.

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Chain announced on Saturday that the $100 million deal will provide the company with assets, including MDT, cash-back application RewardMe and financial data protocol MeFi.

Chain offers developers cloud services to build blockchain-based applications. The unique aspect of this deal involves token conversion, where MDT will become Chain’s native Token XCN, according to The Block.

The firm’s internal M&A handled the deal, alongside advisers from Tanner De Witt and Rooney Nimmo, it added.

“With this acquisition, there will be a sunset of the Measurable Data Token (MDT), which will be burned and swapped for XCN token,” a blog post said. “MDT token holders will receive the benefit of the swap and will be expected to receive a $0.08 MDT token value for the swap.”

Chain CEO Deepak Thapliyal said it was “complicated and requires a lot of counter-party assistance” when speaking about the process.

He added, “we will need the assistance of exchanges to support the swap for tokens that are off-chain. The process will be a lot less complicated for tokens on-chain and will be available through a simple smart contract since we are both primarily ERC20 tokens.”

Recently, XCN was trading on Coinbase at $0.09 a coin.

Chain was founded in 2014 by non-fungible token (NFT) collector and investor, Thapliyal. He is known for purchasing an Alien Punk NFT for $23.5 million.

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It is in Talks with “Interested Parties” for Bailout, Says Zipmex

Zipmex, a cryptocurrency trading platform, is looking ahead as it has confirmed that it is in talks with interested parties who would like to bail out the platform from its recently identified woes. 

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In an announcement it shared on its official Twitter account, Zipmex implied it was not at liberty to disclose the name of the potential backers as it is not bound to do so by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) already signed.

“Our conversations with various interested parties have progressed significantly. One of those parties has offered terms in an MOU which includes confidentiality obligations to be able to commence Due Diligence,” the firm said in the Tweet.

It is unclear how or in what capacity the noted “interested parties” will want to help the firm considering the halt of its activities was hinged on the financial difficulties of its partners. The South Asian crypto app revealed that it had massive exposures to two of the most distressed crypto lenders in the industry, including Celsius Network and Babel Finance, respectively.

Zipmex revealed that it had an unsecured loan of $48 million extended to Babel Finance and $5 million to Celsius. While the company said, it is willing to write off its minimal exposure with Celsius against its own balance sheet.

The due diligence being conducted by the interested parties in Zipmex’s business mimics the type Nexo is currently conducting on Vauld Group, another distressed crypto lending platform that halted its withdrawals a few weeks back.

Exploring equity takeovers and significant loan extensions have been one of the most sought-after bailout approaches that distressed crypto firms are willing to secure as the ecosystem’s future is unsure with the current sweeping liquidity crisis. Firms like FTX Derivatives Exchange are at the forefront of this bailout, with one extended to BlockFi and Voyager Digital, respectively.

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Coinbase’s ‘Nano’ Bitcoin Futures Product Surges amid Declining Trading Volume

Coinbase’s new derivatives unit is capturing the interest of new retail traders who are eyeing the crypto exchange’s “nano” bitcoin product amid the company’s collapsing trading volumes.

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Coinbase’s “nano” bitcoin futures product saw volumes touch records three straight days in the last week even after its spot trading volume collapsed from $200 billion in May 2021 to $59 billion in July.

The nano bitcoin futures product was launched in June. 

According to The Block, the cash-settled futures contract represents 1/100th of a bitcoin and trades across several retail brokers, including Wedbush, EdgeClear, and NinjaTrader. 

“It requires less upfront capital than traditional futures products and creates a real opportunity for significant expansion of retail participation in the US regulated crypto futures markets,” Boris Ilyesky, head of Coinbase Derivatives Exchange, said at the time of the product’s launch.

Following several days of increase, the nano futures’ national volume eventually touched 217,045 on July 19. However, data from Bloomberg shows that contract volumes fell to 117,493 on July 22.

In June and July, data showed that volumes stood below 50,000 contracts traded daily.

The crypto exchange firm saw a “surge in activity ever since retail broker partners started marketing/ promotional efforts last week,” according to an email sent out by Coinbase’s sales team.

Coinbase only entered the derivatives market this year after it purchased FairX – a derivatives venue regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Its competitors are firms like FTX and CME Group, which trade tens of billions of dollars per month in bitcoin futures. 

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Off to a Good Start: Crypto Market Awakening on Sustained Retail Stack Up

The digital currency ecosystem is undoubtedly off to a good start as a new week opens with the combined crypto market cap pegged above the psychologically important level of $1 trillion.

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With the extreme volatility printed over the past few weeks, a trend above this level is evident: cryptocurrencies are showcasing strength and resilience in the face of harsh negative fundamentals.

Bitcoin (BTC) was amongst the digital currencies that has led the rally this weekend, soaring 2.49% to $22,751.06, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Ethereum (ETH) is also changing hands at $1,599.19 after printing as much as a 19.58% gain over the past 24 hours. 

At the time of writing, the KuCoin Token (KCS), native to the KuCoin trading platform, was trading at $9.94, up marginally by 1.40% over the past 24 hours and by 8.68% in the Week-to-Date period. This growth is somewhat surprising, seeing the massive Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubts (FUD) spread by a now-deleted Twitter user, Otteroooo, who claims it has insider information concerning the potential insolvency of the trading platform.

While CEO Johnny Lyu swiftly allayed all fears and dispelled the rumours that retail investors did not panic, selling is one of the myths that has aided the green ticks being seen in the ecosystem at this time.

Retail Investors Staying on Guard

While it is true that the massive slump that has swept the digital currency ecosystem over the past few weeks is more damning to corporate investors, most retail investors are also significantly hurt.

With the industry showing good signs of recovery in the short term, retail investors might have been awakened to triggers fueling their impulse not to pass off on potential gains by this encroaching growth.

However, with more headwinds ahead as it relates to the US Fed’s potential of raising interest rates yet again, retail investors are arguably staying alert to avoid being caught off-guard.

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Bitcoin (BTC) $ 38,793.39 1.17%
Ethereum (ETH) $ 2,105.70 0.89%
Litecoin (LTC) $ 71.66 1.03%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) $ 227.24 1.60%