- Celsius’ Mining Unit Files for Bankruptcy Just Months After Announcing IPO Intention
Celsius Network’s mining unit, which said in March it planned to go public, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, along with its parent company, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
The mining unit of the troubled lender said in March it had filed a confidential S-1 draft registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to take the company public. At the time shares of most publicly traded crypto mining companies were tumbling, with the broader market selloff.
Fast forward to summer, with the continued bear market, miners were forced to sell their mined bitcoins to pay for their operating costs and some industry participants expected lot of miners to turn to M&A to survive the down turn as some faced debt crisis. Celsius Mining’s bankruptcy filing is likely to be another blow to investor sentiment in the mining sector.
Celsius Mining’s IPO process wasn’t a successful option as investors couldn’t get past the possibility of litigation risk while the parent company paused customer withdrawals and faced bankruptcy, according to a person familiar with the mining unit’s IPO process.
- Finder’s Bitcoin Prediction Report Expects BTC to Bottom at $13,676 and End the Year at $25,473
Finder.com published a new forecast that says bitcoin (BTC) will drop to $13,676 per unit this year, according to 53 surveyed fintech specialists. While the report notes that the experts think the bottom will be around $13,676 per BTC, they also expect the leading crypto asset to end the year at $25,473 per coin.
The panelists’ prediction is very much aligned with the 80% drop theory as BTC has lost more than 80% from the all-time price high during every major bear market. At the time of writing, BTC is down over 72% lower than the $69K all-time high (ATH) recorded on November 10, 2021.
Finder’s Bitcoin Prediction Report Expects BTC to Bottom at $13,676 and End the Year at $25,473
In mid-June, Bitcoin.com News reported on what prices would look like if BTC and ETH followed the same bear market patterns as they did in previous years. The math shows that an 80% drawdown from BTC’s ATH in November 2021, would be roughly $13,800 per unit.
- GameStop’s Ethereum NFT Sales Dwarf Coinbase NFT in Two Days
GameStop’s new Ethereum-based NFT marketplace has been live in beta for a little over 48 hours. It isn’t even offering gaming NFTs yet, which will be the marketplace’s planned core offering.
Even so, the video game retailer’s new platform has already seen nearly twice the all-time trading volume of Coinbase’s NFT marketplace, which has been open since May.
Since Monday’s launch, GameStop NFT has seen at least 3,167 ETH in trading volume, according to data published on the marketplace website. That figure, equalling almost $3.5 million, represents the trading volume for the marketplace’s top 50 collections, the only data publicly available, which means GameStop’s total trading volume marketplace-wide is likely higher.
https://decrypt.co/105069/gamestop-ethereum-nft-sales-dwarf-coinbase-nft
- Long-Term Bitcoin Investors Stick It Out as Speculator Selling Drives Prices Lower: Coinbase
Long-term bitcoin investors preserved their holdings in recent weeks even as speculators fled the market, driving the cryptocurrency below $20,000, according to crypto exchange Coinbase.
“Recent BTC selling has been carried out almost exclusively by short-term speculators,” David Duong, head of institutional research at Coinbase, said in the monthly outlook published Tuesday.
The persistent holding by investors is perhaps a sign of confidence that the cryptocurrency would survive in what appears to be a Federal Reserve-induced bear market and eventually thrive as a fiat alternative or digital gold.
Duong called bitcoin ownership retention by investors a positive sentiment indicator, ensuring demand-supply balance in the face of speculator selling, which is a common feature of a bear market.
On-chain data tracked by Coinbase Analytics shows investors now hold about 77% of the total bitcoin supply of 21 million. While the number is off slightly from the early January high of 80%, it is still well above the peak of 60% observed during the height of the late 2017 bull run. The data show a significant amount of wealth has been distributed from speculators or traders to investor in 3.5 years.
The report titled “The Elusive Bottom” defines long-term investors as wallets holding the cryptocurrency for at least six months.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/top/7149726
- Hyosung America makes Bitcoin purchasing app available to 175,000 ATMs
Hyosung America has signed a partnership deal with cash-to-crypto provider DigitalMint that enables Bitcoin (BTC) purchasing across the firm’s 175,000 ATMs located in the United States.
Apart from offering its own BTC and Litecoin (LTC) payment rails such as ATMs, bank wires and tellers, DigitalMint also provides software API integrations that allow retailers or ATM operators to sell BTC through their machines.
As part of the deal, which was announced on Tuesda, Hyosung America will add DigitalMint’s crypto buying services to its upcoming API-based app store, which is being built for the firm’s ATMs.
However, it will be up to the specific ATM operator to decide whether they want to incorporate DigitalMint’s services or not, which means it is unlikely the majority of Hyosung’s 175,000 ATMs will actually support BTC buying.
- OKX Secures License in Dubai and Plans to Open Regional Hub
Cryptocurrency exchange OKX has been awarded a provisional virtual assets (VA) license in Dubai, according to a press release on Thursday.
The license, issued by the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), will allow OKX to provide trading services to investors in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Seychelles-based company also announced plans to open a regional hub in Dubai to expand the reach of cryptocurrencies in the region.
“The MENA region is one of the fastest growing markets for our industry, and we are very excited to be at the heart of this thriving ecosystem,” said OKX General Manager Lennix Lai, who added that the company will continue “innovating for the future in a regulated framework.”
In February, UAE’s Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) announced that it was allowing Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) to establish entities in the country as it looked to become a global crypto hub.
pens-door-for-public-comments-on-bidens-crypto-order/
- Study: 14% of Saudis Are Crypto Investors, 76% Have Less Than One Year of Experience in Cryptocurrency Investment
Around three million Saudi Arabians, or about 14% of the adult population aged 18 to 60, are either crypto investors or have traded crypto over the last six months, the latest study conducted by the cryptocurrency exchange Kucoin has shown. The study findings also suggested that a further 17% of the country’s adults are said to be “crypto-curious and are likely to invest in cryptocurrencies over the coming six months.”
According to the crypto exchange’s Into The Cryptoverse report, the study also looked at how Saudi residents’ sentiment toward crypto trading has shifted since the onset of the ongoing crypto winter.
“In the first quarter of 2022, 49% of crypto investors intended to increase investment in cryptocurrencies over the coming six months. The onset of the bearish market in the second quarter of 2022 saw a reversal of investor sentiment toward more conservative strategies related to the holding of cryptocurrencies,” the report noted.
- DeFi Blue-Chip Tokens Aave, Uniswap, Curve Post Fresh Gains
The crypto roller coaster sees no end as the overall market bounced back into the green zone on Thursday morning, with decentralized finance (DeFi) blue-chip tokens such as Aave, Uniswap, and Curve significantly outperforming the rest of the pack.
AAVE, the native token of the cryptocurrency lending platform Aave, hit a daily high of $81.31 in the early hours today. Although the price of the token slid to $78.87 by press time, it is still up a hefty 9.7% over the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Aave made headlines last week after coming forward with a governance proposal for the launch of GHO, the platform’s own stablecoin.
Aave, which runs on the Ethereum blockchain, is used to lend or borrow digital assets without a centralized intermediary. The platform’s token, AAVE, is currently the 44th largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of over $1.09 billion.
https://decrypt.co/105085/defi-blue-chip-tokens-aave-uniswap-curve-post-fresh-gains
- Mastercard partners with Indonesian crypto gateway to drive financial inclusion
Financial services firm Mastercard has partnered with crypto gateway provider Fasset to co-develop digital solutions that may drive adoption in Indonesia. The collaboration aims to expand financial inclusion in the country and extend opportunities to its local economy.
In an announcement, Navin Jain, the country manager for Mastercard Indonesia, said that will support Fasset’s efforts to advance financial inclusion within the country. According to Jain, the partnership will help locals to have more access to digital technologies.
Hendra Suryakusuma, an executive at Fasset, told Cointelegraph that there is an unbanked population of 92 million in Indonesia. According to Suryakusuma, this gap will be bridged by Fasset and Mastercard to bring better access to digital financial services. Suryakusuma explained that:
“Our partnership seeks to lower the barriers to digital finance and drive greater opportunities to benefit from the use of emerging financial services.”
- More Than $400M in BNB Burned in Quarterly Move
Over 1.9 million BNB tokens worth roughly $405 million were burned Wednesday in a planned move as part of a quarterly burn program, data shows.
Crypto exchange Binance confirmed the burn in a post. Burning is a term used in crypto circles to describe taking a certain amount of tokens out of circulation. Such moves make tokens like BNB more valuable for holders as supply is decreased.
BNB powers the BNB Chain ecosystem and is the native coin of the BNB Beacon Chain and BNB Smart Chain. It was issued by crypto exchange Binance after an initial coin offering in 2017.
BNB uses an auto-burn system to reduce its total supply to 100 million BNB. The auto-burn mechanism adjusts the amount of BNB to be burned based on BNB’s price and the number of blocks generated on the BNB Smart Chain (BSC) during the quarter.
BNB was trading at $213 at press time and has a circulating supply of 163 million tokens.
