Market Insights
Copper’s Weekly Update – 30 November 2020
Highlighting what went right, and what went wrong, in this week’s crypto news analysis.
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, was originally conceived by retailers who try to lure turkey-fed holiday shoppers in with the best offers.
The best Black Friday sale this year by far was Bitcoin – kicking off the sales a day early by slumping as much as 13% on Thursday after having soared to $19,375 mid-week.
A remarkable rebound has put Bitcoin back en route to $19K at press time. The leading cryptocurrency is fresh off an endorsement from Niall Ferguson, a prominent financial historian and Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Bloomberg published a lengthy op-ed by Ferguson yesterday which has drawn widespread attention. In it, the former Harvard and Oxford University professor suggests that the Biden administration would benefit from integrating the digital currency into the US financial system.
Finally, a quick heads up that this newsletter just got a fresh coat of paint! We’ve rolled out a new design to draw stronger distinctions between the week's top stories and Copper-related news. We hope you like it!
Below is our weekly roundup of industry news. If you’d like to get in touch with us about any of our products or services, we look forward to hearing from you. Just send us a note.
Top stories of the week
Chinese police have seized $4.2 billion cryptos from PlusToken Ponzi crackdown
A police crackdown on the PlusToken Ponzi scheme in China has resulted in cryptocurrencies worth $4.2B at today’s prices being seized. According to a court ruling made public on Thursday last week and shared by The Block, law enforcement confiscated a total of 194,775 BTC, 833,083 ETH, 1.4 million LTC, and 27.6 million EOS.
The PlusToken scheme, which originally released its whitepaper back in February 2018, had presented itself as a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange and wallet provider, promising high-yield returns to its investors through exchange profits, mining income, and referral benefits. Read more
Key takeaway: It's not clear how China would dispose of the seized digital assets. Previous sell-offs of ill-gotten gains have been linked to drops in the price of Bitcoin, as supply suddenly spiked.
Ethereum 2.0 confirmed for Dec. 1 launch just hours before deadline
The launch of Ethereum 2.0 is set to take place tomorrow (Tuesday December 1st) after all. The deposit contract’s threshold of 524,288 Ether was met on November 24, with roughly nine hours to go until its deadline.
Key Takeway: The backbone of Ethereum 2.0, the Beacon chain is an interim blockchain that will operate alongside the current network as it begins the first of four migration phases to the new network. ETH’s price ran up in anticipation of the upgrade and is currently resting at $576.
Guggenheim fund files to be able to invest up to almost $500m in Bitcoin through GBTC
Guggenheim Funds Trust filed an amendment with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to allow its Macro Opportunities Fund gain exposure to Bitcoin, by investing up to 10% of the fund’s net asset value in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).
Given the fund has net assets of $4.97 billion, according to the company’s website, it means mean the fund can invest up to $497 million in GBTC.
Key Takeway: Institutional demand continues to come in strong. The crypto space has been attracting major Wall Street institutions lately, signalling the beginning of mainstream adoption.
In case you missed it...
⚡️ OKEx sees biggest Bitcoin outflow in 8 months after resuming withdrawals. Read more
⚡️ Binance's trading volume reaches $132 billion for November, a new monthly high. Read more
⚡️ ZKSwap, a token swap protocol being built on Ethereum's layer-2 scaling technology ZK-rollups, has raised $1.7 million in an angel round. Read more
⚡️ Yearn.finance (YFI) and Pickle Finance set to merge to boost DeFi rewards. Read more
⚡️ Russia to introduce a “Civilized Direction” for the crypto market and protect users from scams. Read more
⚡️ Coinbase CEO warns of 'rushed' wallet regulation. Read more
⚡️ Singapore's third-largest bank appears to be building a crypto custody solution. Read more
⚡️ Chinese digital yuan trial to be held in Suzhou as the central bank gears to roll out the CBDC. Read more
⚡️ Facebook’s Libra could be making its debut in 2021 as a single, dollar-backed coin. Read more
⚡️ Ripple is selling 33% of its stake in Moneygram. Read more
⚡️ Paul Tudor Jones Bitcoin fractal hints at possible explosive BTC rally. Read more
⚡️ Further declines in Bitcoin price possible though Grayscale is crucial, notes JPM analyst. Read more
⚡️ Coinbase cracks into the top 100 free apps on Apple's store. Read more
Copper news
Copper launches first DeFi tool for institutions
On Friday, we announced the launch of CopperConnect – the first ever DeFi tool for crypto institutions!
In addition to enabling investors to earn interest on assets, CopperConnect eliminates operational security concerns, while granting access to a $14bn untapped liquidity locked in DeFi.
Copper adds CoinFLEX exchange to ClearLoop in institutional custodian first
Our other big announcement last week was CoinFLEX as the latest adopter of our ClearLoop framework.
CoinFLEX is an exchange which uniquely offers a range of crypto products including repo markets, futures spreads, one-click borrow/lending, and the yield bearing stablecoin, flexUSD.
New blog post: Why the OECD wants Proof of Stake crypto to succeed
The OECD is an intergovernmental organisation founded on stimulating progress in world trade. With an annual budget of €386m it is far from the largest economic body of its kind. But its proclamations still hold serious weight.
With the launch of Ethereum 2.0 set to take place on Dec 1 after all, our latest article explains why the OECD recommends giving preferential tax treatment to PoS over PoW-based cryptoassets.
Coppercasts episode #8: Erica Stanford
If you consider yourself an avid networker, chances are you are already familiar with our latest Coppercasts guest. The eighth episode welcomes Erica Stanford, founder of the popular Crypto Curry Club – the UKs no 1 rated ‘networking lunch’ organisation for leaders in blockchain, crypto and emerging tech.
You can view Erica's Show & Tell in the Youtube clip below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKsurdAiTFQ
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