1. Market Wrap: Bitcoin Stalls Near $40K as Buyers Take Profits
Analysts see the cryptocurrency’s price as remaining range-bound.
Bitcoin traded sideways on Thursday as buyers appeared to be exhausted near the $40,000 resistance level. The cryptocurrency is up about 23% over the past week, a gain driven by improving sentiment and short covering.
Some analysts expect bitcoin to remain range-bound as the current rally takes a breather.
“Our sense is that the market will keep looking to trade within this $30K-$40K range in the near term,” wrote QCP Capital in a Telegram chat. “Into Friday’s month-end expiry, we expect $40K-$42K to hold as the open interest peaks here.”
Latest prices
Cryptocurrencies:
Bitcoin (BTC) $39711.8, -1.45%
Ether (ETH) $2312.1, +0.2%
Traditional markets:
S&P 500: 4419.1, +0.42%
Gold: $1828.2, +1.21%
10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.273%, compared with 1.233% on Wednesday“Price levels to consider are the $40,000 psychological price level, and $44,000, which is the next resistance level BTC saw when Tesla announced they would accept BTC as payment back in February,” Jeffrey Wang, head of Americas at Amber Group, wrote in an email.
2. MicroStrategy Plans to Continue Amassing Bitcoin
The Virginia-based company now holds more than 105,000 bitcoins.
Business intelligence company MicroStrategy will continue investing in its “digital asset strategy,” the company’s CEO Michael Saylor said in its Q2 earnings announcement Thursday.
Saylor noted that the Tysons Corner, Va.-based company’s latest funding had allowed the firm to increase its digital holdings to more than 105,000 bitcoins.
“We continue to be pleased by the results of the implementation of our digital asset strategy,” he said, adding that “going forward, we intend to continue to deploy additional capital into our digital asset strategy.”
The software firm has been purchasing enormous amounts of bitcoin (BTC, -0.51%) since last August that it keeps in its treasury reserve.
The non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) calculation of the market value of MicroStrategy’s current bitcoin holdings as of June 30 was $3.653 billion, reflecting bitcoin’s market price of $34,763 at the time. The non-GAAP digital asset cost basis was $2.741 billion or $26,080 per bitcoin.
MicroStrategy reported $125.4 million in revenue for the quarter, a 13.4% increase over its performance for the same period a year ago.
Shares of MicroStrategy were down 2.2% to $611.48 in after-hours trading Thursday following the release of its results.
3. Robinhood Falls in Trading Debut
Shares of the popular zero-commission trading app opened down as much as 10% on Thursday before closing the day down 8.4%.
Shares of stock trading app Robinhood closed down more than 8% in its stock market debut on Thursday.
Shares priced on Wednesday evening at $38 a share, towards the low end of its trading range and valuing the company at $32 billion. The company sold 52.4 million shares and raised $1.89 billion.
Trading was volatile at the start and shares initially fell as much as 10%. The stock recovered some of those losses before again drifting lower, finishing the day down 8.4% to $34.82. The company is trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol HOOD.
The company has significant crypto ambitions, with 17% of its overall revenue coming from crypto transactions in the first quarter of the year. Customers can currently buy and sell bitcoin (BTC, -0.59%), ether (ETH, +4.45%) and dogecoin (DOGE, +0.4%).
Robinhood unconventionally offered a portion of its initial public offering to users via its app, a strategy some consider to be a risky gamble.
4. Framework to Regulate Crypto, Stablecoins Introduced in US Congress
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said the existing digital asset market structure and regulatory framework are too “ambiguous and dangerous for investors and consumers.”
Legislation to provide a “comprehensive legal framework” to regulate the digital asset market and possibly grant the federal government the ability to ban some stablecoins was introduced in the House of Representatives Wednesday.
According to sponsor Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), chairman of the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, the existing digital asset market structure and regulatory framework are too “ambiguous and dangerous for investors and consumers.”
Among its many provisions the measure would:
Create statutory definitions for digital assets and digital asset securities and provide the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with authority over digital asset securities and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) with authority over digital assets
Require digital asset transactions that are not recorded on the publicly distributed ledger to be reported to a registered Digital Asset Trade Repository within 24 hours to minimize the potential for fraud and promote transparency
Explicitly add digital assets and digital asset securities to the statutory definition of “monetary instruments,” under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), formalizing the regulatory requirements for digital assets and digital asset securities to comply with anti-money laundering, recordkeeping, and reporting requirements
Provide the Federal Reserve with explicit authority to issue a digital version of the U.S. dollar, clarify that digital assets, digital asset securities and fiat-based stablecoins are not U.S. legal tender, and provide the U.S. Treasury Secretary with authority to permit or prohibit US dollar and other fiat-based stablecoins
Direct the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), and Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) to issue consumer advisories on “non coverage” of digital assets or digital asset securities to ensure that consumers are aware that they are not insured or protected in the same way as bank deposits or securities
5. Ireland’s Central Bank Says Digital Euro Not Matter of If, But ‘When and How’
Introducing a digital euro would represent a “fundamental shift” in the Eurozone’s financial architecture, Governor Gabriel Makhlouf noted.
The head of Ireland’s main monetary authority has likened the purchase of cryptocurrencies to collecting stamps, while praising the potential for a digital euro.
Central Bank of Ireland Governor Gabriel Makhlouf said that while the Eurozone has yet to decide on a central bank digital currency, the development is “very likely” to happen.
“In my view, it’s not a question of if but rather how and when,” the governor wrote in a bank blog post on Thursday.
Introducing a digital euro would represent a “fundamental shift” in the financial architecture of the Eurozone, Makhlouf noted.
The governor was less kind to cryptos, which he said were accompanied by an “unhelpful and misleading descriptor,” as they fell out of the definitions of currency.
Some cryptos have no anchor to provide stability, wrote Makhlouf, but “on the other hand, on the evidence some people do like to collect them, just as some like to collect other things (such as stamps, for example). Buying such items can be profitable but it can also be loss-making.”
Makhlouf also took aim at stablecoins, saying the pegged cryptos were only “as good as the governance behind the promise of the backing.”
The governor, who took up his position in September 2019, is a British national. He was previously the New Zealand Treasury’s secretary and chief executive, according to his LinkedIn page.
In March, Ireland’s central bank warned companies operating in the republic would have to comply with anti-money laundering rules. It also warned against the risk of crypto to investors in May.
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