FOMO is out, big money is back in - Crypto Investor's Weekly 18.06-25.06

The Boys are back in town

Can you smell expensive leather???

Or hear interns running around with trays of coffee???

We can too because it’s TradFi Summer and the suits are moving back into crypto.??

Everyone is talking about how Bitcoin hit $30,000 after weeks of regulatory uncertainty and outflows from the markets.??

Short sellers betting against BTC ate over $100 million’s worth of humble pie (take that bears) and BlackRock became an unlikely industry darling after it filed an application for a Bitcoin exchange traded funds.?

The road to regulatory approval in the United States is littered with failed projects and a Bitcoin ETF probably has one of the highest body counts of all.??

Will their application make the grade? Will Gensler let his finance pals through? Or will the ban hammer come down just as hard? We will have to wait and see.??

One thing does seem to be true for the moment though: regulatory pressure is easing. We’ve seen a momentary pause in Gensler slinging out lawsuits, Binance managed to hold off an asset freeze and Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell even said that crypto “appears to have some staying power” and that the Fed sees “stablecoins as a form of money.”??

Who says a leopard can’t change it spots???

In Europe, Deutsche Bank warms up to digital assets and a French central banker speaks up about CBDCs and the digital euro.??

Check out Tweet of the Week section to learn about a new lawsuit that moved millions.??

Did you bring your swimmers? I hope so, because it’s time to dive in.??

Chart of the week?

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Source: Kaiko?

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Remember when, no matter what regulators threw at Binance, nothing would stick? Well, it looks like the teflon times are over for the once Chinese, now Cayman Islands, next week who-knows-where-headquartered exchange.??

If you haven’t heard, Binance was on the sharp end of a lawsuit from the United States’ Securities and Exchanges commission. Binance faces 13 charges, including the alleged operation of an unregistered securities exchange.??

According to the SEC lawsuit, regulators allege that “Zhao and Binance entities engaged in an extensive web of deception, conflicts of interest, lack of disclosure and calculated evasion of the law.” The SEC clearly isn’t messing around with this one.??

What was the impact for Binance? According to Kaiko, the exchange’s U.S. entity is bleeding away its market share, losing nearly 80% in a week. On the day before the lawsuit, the exchange’s market depth was $34m, as of a week later, it shrank to just $7m.??

There are many lessons to be learned in this debacle, but the most stand out ones for us are:??

• Make sure you’re in a crypto-friendly jurisdiction with great regulation.??
• Make sure you are fully compliant with that regulation?
• Avoid the United States like the plague.??

Let’s see if Binance's recent agreement with the SEC is enough to stem the bleeding.??

This week’s crypto prices?

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Remember all those bad vibes in the past few weeks? No? Well neither does anyone else because Bitcoin is back above $30,000 and, as we all know, that’s enough to trigger collective amnesia in the markets. I guess people need to make hay when the sun shines. So, what’s this latest bump all about and can we finally put fr fears to bed???

That was a trick question. It’s crypto and we can never put our fears to bed. So let’s move on to the why.??

One of the biggest financial companies in the world, BlackRock filed for a Bitcoin exchange traded fund (ETF) application. This is a ballsy move considering many market participants have been avoiding riskier assets in the past weeks. But where BlackRock goes, the rest may well follow. The regulatory trouble in past weeks also cooled, after Binance reached a temporary agreement with the SEC to avoid a potential asset freeze.??

Bears managed to push the BTC price down into the low $26,00s in early June. This was a rallying cry for bulls to get to work, and combined with the BlackRock news, triggered around $125 million in liquidations of leveraged short futures contracts. The bears were clearly caught out when Bitcoin rose 10% in just two days. Next stop for bulls could be $31,000 and from there on all the way up to $40,000. If bears can retake the reigns, they might try to push all the way down to the low $25,000s.?

When BTC surges, the rest tend to follow and that seemed to be the case with Ether this week. Ether managed to shake the bears loose and push past the 20 day average. Some analysts expected Ether to mirror BTC’s nearly 20% rise over the week and hit that all-important $2,000 mark, but as the week draws to a close, prices are stuck in the high $1,800s. Let’s see if the bulls can charge a little higher over the weekend.??

Tweet of the week ?

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Source: Twitter?

?This was the tweet that raised over $1 million.??

It’s not for a charity. It’s not even for access to information to get an edge on the markets. It’s the crypto community coming together to support a figure known as ZachXBT, well known in the digital asset world for his research on exposing scammers on Twitter.??

If you’ve been around on crypto Twitter for a while, the chances are you’ve already heard of Zach. He’s got a reputation for calling out the scammers in the space and using blockchain analytics to show who’s up to no good.??

This time the attention was turned on Zach himself after a prominent NFT trader Jeffrey Huang sued him for defamation.??

But why???

Last year, Zach published a report that alleged Huang had embezzled tens of millions worth of crypto. Huang responded that he was unfairly defamed and filed a lawsuit in a Texas court.??

In a tweet, ZachtXBT described his situation as a “classic David & Goliath story” and said that Machi “is using his money to try and silence me.” ZachXBT added that “it is sickening to see it come to this, but I knew one days this would happen as the price of telling the truth is sometimes people dislike what you say.”??

But the rest of the community hasn’t hung ZachXBT out to dry. He received over $1 million in support, with backers such as Binance, Justin Sun and others.??

So – will money win? Or will the courts show that ZachXBT is simply the truth-teller that the industry so badly needs???

We’ll keep you posted.??

Crypto news??

WisdomTree, Invesco Follow BlackRock With Spot Bitcoin ETF Applications??

Two more U.S.-based asset managers moved to file for spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the wake of the investment giant BlackRock making a similar application last week.??

Full article: Decrypt?

Federal Reserve Chairman Says Crypto Appears to Have Staying Power in US Economy?

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has acknowledged that cryptocurrency appears to have staying power as an asset class in the U.S. economy. In addition, he stated that the central bank views payment stablecoins as a form of money, emphasizing that it would be appropriate to have a robust federal role in what happens in stablecoin regulations going forward.?

Full article: Bitcoin.com?

Deutsche Bank Applies for Digital Asset License Amid Growth Push?

Deutsche Bank AG has applied for regulatory permission to operate a custody service for digital assets such as crypto currencies.?

Full article: Bloomberg?

Crypto Community Donates $1M to Sleuth ZachXBT After Defamation Lawsuit?

Crypto community and prominent businesses have donated over $1 million in various stablecoins and tokens to ZachXBT as the popular blockchain sleuth prepares to fight defamation charges.?

Full article: Coindesk?

Issuing digital euro, or ‘Cash+,’ is probably a duty, French central banker says?

The digital euro holds something in store for every stakeholder, Governor of the Banque de France Fran?ois Villeroy de Galhau told commercial bankers on June 22. Disintermediation is not in the works, he said at the Global Official Institutions Conference hosted by French multinational bank BNP Paribas.?

Full article: Cointelegraph?

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Bitcoin in the green. Summer finally hitting.

That’s the only kind of triple threat we like. ?

So go out and make the most of it while the good times last. ?

Bye! ?