Bitcoin finally managed to break out from a prolonged consolidation phase, climbing to $45k on Sunday – its highest level in more than two months.

However, it was Ether that stole the show last week.

On Thursday, Ethereum’s highly anticipated London hard fork upgrade went live, ushering in the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559 and moving ETH closer to becoming a deflationary asset. The world’s second largest cryptocurrency is now valued at around $3.1k per coin, up more than 20% from a week ago. And as of Monday afternoon, the crypto market cap stands perched at almost $1.8T – more than a $400bn jump from the week prior.

Both the potential turnaround of markets and Ether pushing prices forward were assessments made recently by our research team.

Also interestingly, the spike in crypto prices is taking place in the midst of massive regulatory uncertainty in the United States as Biden's infrastructure bill makes its way through congress.

The vague language of the crypto-related provisions of the bill that propose stricter tax regulation has led to enormous debate among industry participants. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is one industry participant to come out against the wording of bill, saying that it wrongly cover miners and decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols to go through the process of KYC with all of their users — something that is impossible for both miners and DeFi protocols.

We now join the entire crypto universe in watching with bated breath to see how this latest fiasco will play out. Whatever happens, we aren’t too worried. One way or another, crypto will find a way through – as it always has. It also might be too soon to sound alarm bells. The vote headed for Tuesday would still need to pass the US House sometime in September too.

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.

This week's top stories

Cryptocurrency debate slows infrastructure bill

Senators spent a second weekend in a row wrangling over the details of a $1T bipartisan infrastructure proposal. Two competing crypto amendments sandwiched in the U.S. infrastructure bill caused a huge stir, with lawmakers debating changes to how the bill defines a “broker” in a provision intended to raise more tax revenue from crypto transactions. There is no agreement over whether the amendments will get considered for inclusion before a final vote is called, with a 30-hour deadline set to expire in the early of Tuesday morning. Read More

Brian Brooks resigns as CEO of crypto exchange Binance US

Brian Brooks, chief executive of the US arm of global cryptocurrency exchange Binance, said on Friday he had resigned just three months after taking up the role. The former US banking regulator and crypto enthusiast is resigning at a time when regulators in Hong Kong, Britain, Germany, Japan, Italy and Thailand have cracked down on Binance due to worries over investor protection. Read More

Ethereum gains steam after London hard fork

One of the most significant upgrades to the Ethereum network happened last Thursday. The ‘London Hard Fork’ marks a major step towards making Ethereum deflationary and the network more scalable. Data shows Ether is burning at a rate of around 3.17 coins a minute since the new upgrade rolled out across the network. The London Hard Fork also acts as a prelude to ‘Serenity’ or ETH 2.0, which will likely be live by the end of the year. Read more

In case you missed it

⚡️SEC claims first enforcement action in $30m fraud case involving DeFi project.

⚡️Bitcoin SV suffers a new 51% attack.

⚡️German fashion company Philipp Plein to accept cryptocurrency payments.

⚡️Swisscom will become a Chainlink node operator.

⚡️Binance restricts derivatives products in Hong Kong.

⚡️HSBC UK blocks payments to Binance exchange .

⚡️Venezuela will launch ‘digital bolivar' in October.

⚡️New bill in Ukraine to allow payments in cryptocurrency, says official.

⚡️Fidelity takes 7.4% stake in Marathon Digital.

⚡️Grayscale hires new global head of ETFs.

⚡️Victory Capital files application to SEC for crypto ETF.

⚡️French fund manager launches EU-regulated ETF that tracks Bitcoin price.

⚡️Invesco files with SEC for Bitcoin ETF without direct BTC exposure.

⚡️Steve Cohen's Point72 makes first crypto venture investment, leads Messari's $21m raise.

⚡️Coinbase is acquiring crypto data aggregator Zabo.

From Copper

Analyst Retrospective: August 2021

Findings of our August Retrospective illustrate that small to medium investors have returned to accumulation ever since Bitcoin hit the $35k mark at the end of May. Since the start of this year, on-chain data shows that entity holding between 0 and 1 BTC increased by 137k Bitcoins, equivalent to 72% of newly mined supply. By the time the next halving comes round, there might be no new supply at this very steady growth rate. Read the full report here.

Bretton Woods: The Realignment,  August 11 - 13, 2021

This week, Copper's Head of Strategy, Asen Kostadinov and myself will be joining today’s foremost economists, investors, academics and thinkers to answer the question: What is the future of money? Click here to see the full speaker list and agenda of Bretton Woods: The Realignment, hosted by Blockworks. We look forward to seeing some of you there!

Hedgeweek Americas Awards 2021: Vote for us as Best Digital Assets Custodian!

We've been shortlisted for another award - this time in the 'Best Digital Assets Custodian' category in the Hedgeweek Americas Awards. Winners are decided by majority vote, and you can help us achieve this award by casting your vote here. Thank you. 😊