“Market participants’ concern over the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes and high inflation are heavy macro headwinds facing Bitcoin. Bitcoin price is highly reactive to interest rates and the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), which puts a strain on risk assets.
The best way for Bitcoin to withstand short-seller pressure is for new long liquidity and spot buyers to enter the market. Analyzing exchange net flows is a good way to measure new liquidity and currently this metric reflects a 34% uptick since the start of 2023, but it lags behind the yearly daily average of $1.6 billion. Currently, the general consensus among analysts is that the ability to onboard new liquidity into the crypto market has been hindered by a crackdown on banks that support crypto-oriented businesses.
Since mid-January, the weekly average of NUPL has shifted from a state of net unrealized loss to a positive condition. This indicates that the average Bitcoin holder is now holding a net unrealized profit of magnitude of approximately 15% of the market cap. This pattern resembles a market structure equivalent to transition phases in previous bear markets.
While Bitcoin’s 2023 momentum may have paused in mid-February and many headwinds remain, there are positive signs that the transition out of the deepest phase of thbear market is near.”
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“BCB Group, a payments processor that links crypto companies to the banking system, is accelerating plans to add U.S. dollar capabilities to help fill the hole left by the recently shuttered Silvergate Exchange Network, or SEN.
I’d like to say it could be live by spring, so we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure those who are stranded by SEN get some sort of continuity given the huge overlap of BCB and Silvergate clients.
Silvergate’s troubles started when they allowed long-term bitcoin bets against short-term cash deposits, an impossible position to unwind in 2022’s crazy markets. BLINC funds are 1:1, unleveraged, un-rehypothecated, always precisely 1:1 with safeguarded funds.
London-based BCB, which was the first crypto company to receive a payments license from U.K. regulator the Financial Conduct Authority, provides fiat-to-crypto rails for currencies, including sterling, euros, Swiss francs and yen in Europe, particularly to institutional players such as crypto exchanges Bitstamp, Gemini and Kraken and financial-services firm Galaxy Digital.
New York-based Signature Bank’s (SBNY) Signet, an equivalent to SEN, has to date been the next largest network for USD instant settlement and stands to fill some of the demand. That said, a BLINC dollar component has been in the works for about a year and is getting ready to launch, Landsberg-Sadie said.”
See Also: 21.co CEO Sees ‘No Material’ Impact on Bitcoin Following Silvergate’s SEN Platform Closure
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“Grayscale is appealing the SEC’s decision to deny the conversion of the trust into an exchange-traded fund. The company said it’s preparing to argue that the SEC inappropriately treated its ETF bid differently than its earlier decisions to approve bitcoin futures-based ETFs.
GBTC has been trading at a mostly steadily widening discount to NAV for nearly two years, but some investors are hopeful that the discount will continue its recent narrowing should the courts be receptive to Grayscale’s ETF arguments.
There are many investors waiting for the green light from the SEC to convert GBTC into an ETF because it will narrow the current gap. There are investors buying GBTC now to play the positive scenario from the lawsuit.
While far from a certainty, it is our view that the market is underpricing the likelihood of a Grayscale victory.”
See Also: Voyager Denies SEC Claims VGX Token Is a Security as Binance.US Decision Looms
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“Unlike Ethereum-based NFTs, buying artworks built on the premier crypto network doesn’t have an open marketplace.
Thus, the auction process requires interested TwelveFold buyers to transfer Bitcoin to a Yuga Labs deposit address to place their bids. The company then custodies users Bitcoin until the auction ends; if a bid is unsuccessful, the funds are returned.
This is a scammer’s dream. Yuga is establishing a REALLY bad precedent running an auction like this.
This controversial auction arrangement for Bitcoin-based NFTs is a result of the network’s limited ability to accommodate such operations.”
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“TeraWulf (WULF) has begun operations at its Nautilus Cryptomine facility – the first nuclear-powered bitcoin mining facility in the U.S. – with nearly 8,000 mining rigs online representing computing power, or hashrate, of about 1.0 exahash per seond (EH/s). The company said Monday it expects to reach 5.5 EH/s of computing power by early in the second quarter.
The Nautilus mine is the first behind-the-meter bitcoin mining facility of its kind, directly sourcing reliable, carbon free, and 24×7 baseload power from the 2.5GW Susquehanna nuclear generation station in Pennsylvania.
Nautilus will significantly lower TeraWulf’s energy costs, with the company having secured a power agreement for 2 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) of power for five years. It is a joint venture with Texas energy producer Talen Energy, in which TeraWulf has a 25% interest.”
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“In the hub-and-spoke process, a cross-border transaction is broken down into two domestic payments facilitated by a foreign-exchange provider active in both countries. That gives central banks almost complete control over their CBDCs, while allowing competitive quotes for the exchange rate to be submitted to the hub so that end users can benefit from the best rate.
This competitive setup mitigates the risk of insufficient liquidity in the desired currency pair.
The Group of 20 industrialized nations has made exploring cross-border payment systems a priority, and Project Icebreaker was a response to G-20’s call to action, the report said.”
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The Disrupt 