BTC Broke $30K on ETF Optimism

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Good Morning. The situation at DCG is looking worse than expected. Allegedly, the widow maker trader and the looping of capital between Gemini, Genesis, and DCG ended up defrauding 230,000 investors, incurring more than $1 billion loss.

At the same time, the market’s reaction is encouraging, with Bitcoin breaking above $30,000 even with the negative news over the weekend. Maybe… just maybe, the sellers are finally out of coins (one can hope!).

In Today's Email:

• What Matters: Bitcoin broke $30,000 📈

• Products: Wind, borderless payments 💸

• Charts: Bitcoin 2024 supply, FTX $11B spending 📊

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WHAT MATTERS

Bitcoin Broke $30K on ETF Optimism

State of play: Bitcoin rose above $30,000 on Friday, marking an over 11% weekly gain, driven by optimism for a potential US spot Bitcoin ETF approval.

• Numerous ETF providers revised their filings, urging the SEC to ease its position on approving a bitcoin ETF.

• Coinbase’s CLO, Paul Grewal, is optimistic about the SEC approving bitcoin spot ETF applications.

• QCP stated that a recent hoax tweet by Cointelegraph on Bitcoin spot ETF underscores that it is the 'only one game' in the crypto market.

What’s next: JPMorgan’s Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou stated that the SEC is likely to approve the spot Bitcoin ETF in the next few months — probably before 10 January.

• In contrast, QCP, a crypto-asset trading firm, does not expect the SEC to approve any Bitcoin ETF applications or conversions this year.

Our take: It is fairly safe to speculate that a spot Bitcoin ETF is now a matter of when not if.

For builders and investors: A spot Bitcoin ETF approval is the new liquidity unlock that crypto desperately needs. It’s one of the “big crypto problems” — aka the clarity around launching regulated spot crypto products — that need to be solved before the next bull market can come.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 100 smart crypto investors' wallet addresses 👇

PRODUCTS OF THE WEEK

Wind, a Wallet for Borderless Payment

Borderless payments for everyone. Wind is a non-custodial wallet that enables its users to instantly send and receive money (stablecoins) anywhere in the world at near-free transaction fees.

• Wind is built on the Polygon blockchain.

• Wind is currently the #1 Trending Web3 Product on Product Hunt.

• Wind supports 100+ tokens including USDC, USDT, ETH, and BTC.

• Users can participate in DeFi yield and even trade on DEXs.

• Users will be able to buy and sell NFTs from Wind wallet soon.

Other cool products:

• Galxe, a platform for building a Web3 community.

• P100, a dual Crypto/Fiat mobile app.

• Copin.io, a platform to explore, analyze, and copy on-chain traders.

• Momentous, a platform to mint photos and videos from camera roll onto the blockchain.

CHARTS OF THE WEEK

Bitcoin Supply Post 2024

State of play: Bitcoin started in 2009 with a block reward of 50 BTC every 10 minutes. The third halving on May 11, 2020, reduced it from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC.

• The next halving is estimated to happen on April 11, 2024, cutting the reward to 3.125 BTC.

• The supply of BTC in April 2024 is forecasted to be at ~19.7M.

• Every 210,000 blocks, Bitcoin undergoes a halving event that reduces the newly minted BTC by half, progressing towards the 21M cap.

Our take: For miners to sustain their revenue post the 2024 halving, the price of BTC needs to appreciate significantly; and eventually, BTC needs to find an alternative economic model.

FTX-Alameda $11B Spending Allocation

State of play: Professor Easton, a forensic accounting expert, testified and presented Alameda’s spending chart for June 2022 in court.

• Easton testified that out of $11.3B of FTX customer funds meant to be with Alameda Research, only $2.3B were found in bank accounts.

• Most capital went to Genesis, KS (a fund started by a former Hillary Clinton aide), and Anthropic (an AI startup)

• Easton discovered that the funds were traced to various destinations including investments, political donations, charities, and real estate.

Our take: There is $3.1B (27.43%) from $11.3B that is categorized as ‘other’ in the spending chart which could mean that it is still unidentified/untraced.

QUICK BITES

• DTCC acquires Securrency.

• Binance halts service for European Visa debit cards.

• Worldcoin switches rewards plan to boost WLD supply.

• Hong Kong regulator updates policy for crypto activities.

• Crypto companies are flocking to Ireland ahead of MiCA.

• LBRY shuts down due to running out of money fighting the SEC.

• EU Banking Regulators set out crypto shareholder requirements.

• FBI charges six people for allegedly running a $30M illegal money-transmitting business.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

• Our Network’s read on Bitcoin mega issue.

• Catrina Wang’s read on growing the pie vs slicing the pie.

• ASXN’s read on the house always wins: a Rollbit research report.

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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.