Bitcoin ATH: BlackRock to Acquire Even More

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Good Morning. We broke a new all-time high on a Sunday night just before the Americans wake up. This is truly the best asset class. Anyway, we’re now truly at a price discovery stage for BTC with the new all-time high. Maybe $100,000 soon…?

In Today's Email:

• What Matters: BlackRock to acquire Bitcoin ETPs 💰️ 

• Policy: Wyoming’s DAO legal status ✅ 

• Charts: Ethena’s $4M earnings, $4B crypto scam 📈

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WHAT MATTERS

BlackRock Global Allocation Fund to Buy BTC

State of play: BlackRock plans to purchase spot bitcoin ETPs for its $18B Global Allocation Fund, as stated in a recent SEC filing. The filing indicates that BlackRock may acquire its own IBIT product along with other Bitcoin ETPs.

• BlackRock recently filed to introduce spot bitcoin ETPs into its $36.7B AUM Strategic Income Opportunities Fund.

• Meanwhile, In under two months, BlackRock’s IBIT has acquired more Bitcoin than MicroStrategy.

• IBIT disclosed holding 195,985 Bitcoin on Friday last week.

• MicroStrategy's most recent public statements, as of Feb. 26, showed the company holding 193,000 Bitcoin.

• However, MicroStrategy may have increased its holdings as the company recently looking to raise $700M to purchase more Bitcoin.

What’s next: BlackRock's IBIT already has the highest total net inflow among all Bitcoin ETFs, nearing 200K in BTC. With its intention to acquire its own IBIT product, IBIT might soon surpass GBTC in BTC holdings.

Our take: By the end of 2024, it wouldn’t be surprising if the entire spot Bitcoin ETF products hold more than 10% of BTC supply.

For builders and investors: The further marks BlackRock’s conviction in BTC as an asset class. Higher for longer.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 500 crypto VC individuals 👇

POLICY UPDATE

Wyoming Grants DAOs New Legal Status

Programming Note: This section usually covers new product update, but we’re covering the new policy due to its importance.

Last week, Gov. Mark Gordon signed a bill into law in Wyoming, allowing DAOs to establish themselves as decentralized unincorporated nonprofit associations (DUNAs) in addition to existing options as LLCs.

Miles Jennings and David Kerr from a16z Crypto praised it as a "major breakthrough," providing "much-needed protections" for DAOs and enabling them to uphold open blockchain networks in a recent blog post:

• They argue that this new status as "decentralized unincorporated nonprofit associations" (DUNAs) will safeguard against discrimination and unfair value extraction.

• The DUNA helps DAOs by solving three key challenges: providing legal existence for contracting and court appearances, facilitating tax payments, and offering limited liability from members' actions."

• a16z plans to direct associated DAOs towards this legal status and focus future investments on entities following this path.

Other notable policy updates:

• ShapeShift settles SEC charges it sold crypto securities.

• Hong Kong’s Central Bank announces new wholesale CBDC project.

• South Korea plans crypto management system against tax evasion: report.

• Nigeria's SEC updates guidelines for crypto, blocking Binance and Coinbase.

• UK launches consultation on implementing OECD crypto reporting framework.

• SEC pushes back the decision on BlackRock, Fidelity’s Ether ETF applications.

Other cool products:

• Shakespay, a crypto payment platform.

• Blockgem, a crypto arbitrage dashboard.

• Virtoshi, Bitcoin transaction simulation platform.

• FreezeKeys, a crypto private key backup & recovery system.

• Arena, an SDK solution for blockchain gaming tools integration.

CHARTS OF THE WEEK

Ethena Bags $4M for USDe Treasury

State of play: Stablecoin project Ethena Labs earned over $4M from its treasury within two weeks of going live, signalling early success despite criticisms.

• Ethena's USDe, a synthetic dollar pegged to $1 through shorting ETH futures, generated over 68% annualized returns on deposits as of Friday.

• After paying out users, the project could retain $4M for its treasury, according to Ethena’s head of growth, @MacroMate8, boosting the treasury to over $16M from ~$12M.

• Ethena's earnings have propelled it to become the third-largest protocols by revenue as of March 8th.

Our take: Ethena is rapidly becoming responsible for low double digit percentage of the overall ETH open interest (OI). As it grows further, this will be a new type of risk that needs to be managed.

Crypto Scam Losses Surged to $3.94B in 2023

State of play: In 2023, US crypto investment scam losses reached $3.94B, up 53% from $2.57B in 2022, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Report 2023.

• Overall investment fraud increased by 38% to $4.57B from $3.31B.

• Crypto investment scams represent almost $4B from the total losses, or approximately 87%.

• In 2023, losses from investment scams emerged as the most prevalent internet crime, comprising over a third of the total $12.5B.

Our take: Security improvement remains one of the most important aspect as we onboard the next million users.

QUICK BITES

• Bill Ackman mulls Bitcoin.

• BTC breaks through $71,000.

• Fairshake will target key US Senate races.

• Bitcoin ETFs have amassed $50B in assets.

• MakerDAO implements temporary fee hikes.

• LSE starts accepting BTC and ETH ETN applications.

• $104M in crypto was lost to phishing incidents in 2024.

• SEC met with Grayscale and Coinbase on spot Ethereum ETF.

• Coinbase shares top $250 for the first time since direct listing.

• Jito Labs axes mempool function following increase in MEV attacks.

• Arbitrum DAO revokes proposal for donation to Tornado Cash devs.

• Dogwifhat community plans to put the meme on the Vegas Sphere.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

• Thiccy’s read on L2s inflation in 2024.

• Celestia’s read on sharing a sequencer set.

• Decentralised’s read on on-chain communities.

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.