The stock market and Bitcoin are now inversely correlated in a good way!

Finally. For a long time, we saw the complete opposite, but after a series of news about plans for a Bitcoin ETF from multiple institutions, crypto started to outperform stocks 😌

✅ This week, a few more traditional finance companies applied for Bitcoin ETFs, and one even got its ETF approved by the SEC. BTC showed insane growth and pumped from 26.3k to 31.4k, leaving bears in tears and many people sidelined 🐂

Weekly crypto digest:

🔸 Crypto payments platform Wyre will shut down due to the financial challenges of the bear market

🔸 Bankrupt lender Celsius will convert all frozen funds into BTC and ETH

🔸 Do Kwon sentenced to 4 months in jail in Montenegro

🔸 TUSD minting and redemption for retail are halted 😑

🔸 EDX Markets exchange was launched while being backed by Citadel Securities, Fidelity Investments, and Charles Schwab

🔸 US SEC has approved Volatility Shares' leveraged futures Bitcoin ETF 😮

🔸 Bitwise, WisdomTree, and Invesco have applied for a Bitcoin ETF

🔸 And another one: Valkyrie Digital Assets applied for a spot Bitcoin ETF

🔸 Chair of the Fed Jerome Powell called stablecoins "a form of money" and said that crypto has "staying power as an asset class"

🔸 Binance launched a regulated digital asset platform in Kazakhstan

🔸 Binance got kicked out of Belgium by the state financial regulator 👉🚪

🔸 Binance US resolved delayed USD withdrawal requests, but users still asked to sell or withdraw USD from the exchange

🔸 Binance Markets Limited in the UK withdrew its request for registration with the Financial Conduct Authority. Now, Binance has no operational approvals for the company in the 🇬🇧

🔸 Wintermute, one of the biggest crypto market makers, was accused of wash trading in the lawsuit against crypto lender Celsius

🔸 The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Coinbase, allowing the company to halt court proceedings and move customer litigation into arbitration. This is not about the SEC lawsuit 👏

🔹 Prices:

🌐 Bitcoin - $30,429 (↓0.79%)
⚙️ Ethereum - $1,890 (↑0.15%)
📈 S&P 500 - 4,348 (↓0.77%)
💲 DXY - 102.87 (↑0.47%)
🌕 Gold - 1,930 (↑0.34%)

Bitcoin did not fall below 30k and is now trading around 30.4k, after last week's rapid growth, many altcoins are now having a correction 🫠

A list of companies that are interested in buying bankrupt crypto exchange FTX was published. Among them are BlackRock, Ripple, Galaxy, Nasdaq... 😯

Rumors: Ripple is planning to buyback 10 billion XRP tokens, which would be $4.8 billion, and nobody can explain why it would do that 🫤

Binance is viewing the United Arab Emirates as the world’s next major crypto hub and plans to make it a priority for business expansion. All thanks to favorable and transparent regulation 🇦🇪

🔹 Last 24 hours top 3 gainers:

ApeCoin - $2.43 (↑5.98%)
NEAR Protocol - $1.55 (↑7.09%)
Stacks - $0.763 (↑2.21%)

#GM

UK government found a scapegoat for inflation 🐐

Guess who is to blame for high inflation? Covid? Ineffective economic policies? No, the problem is public workers' salaries 🥴

The UK government is considering blocking pay rises for public workers due to high inflation, as it fears it could further drive up prices.

Rishi Sunak's blocking of wage increases recommended by independent pay review bodies will potentially cause even more union unrest.

Inflation problem is real, last week Bank of England even raised the interest rate by 0.5% to a 15-year high 😳

BTC and ETH ETFs for Chinese 🇭🇰

The largest bank in Hong Kong, HSBC, will allow its customers to buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs listed on the Hong Kong exchange.

In terms of crypto regulations, Hong Kong seems to take the opposite approach from the US.

Hong Kong takes advantage of the uncertainty and insularity of other countries' financial regulators, and by doing so, it grows its market share 📈

Binance withdraws from Austria 🫡

Crypto exchange Binance has withdrawn its license application with the Financial Market Authority of Austria.

The Austrian regulator reportedly exerted pressure behind the scenes.

One by one, Binance cuts down its EU entities and moves to Asia and the Middle East...

🔙 Binance reverted the delistings decision

Binance decided not to delist privacy coins in Europe, as it was planning to do last month 👌

💬 “After carefully considering feedback from our community and several projects, we have revised how we classify privacy coins on our platform to comply with EU-wide regulatory requirements.“

It's weird, especially knowing that these days Binance gets kicked out of at least one European country each week, maybe at this point they simply don't care? 🤨

✅ Like the stock market, the crypto market is experiencing a slight price correction, but bitcoin is still holding the 30k level 💪

Day summary:

🔸 list of companies that are interested in buying bankrupt crypto exchange FTX was published. BlackRock, Ripple, Galaxy, and Nasdaq are among those who are interested

🔸 Binance is viewing the UAE as the world’s next major crypto hub and plans to make it a priority for business expansion 🇦🇪

🔸 The largest bank in Hong Kong, HSBC, will allow its customers to buy Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs

🔸 Binance has withdrawn its license application with the Financial Market Authority of Austria 👋

🔸 Binance decided not to delist privacy coins in European countries, reversing the decision made earlier this month

🔸 Swiss authorities have frozen $26 million of Do Kwon funds stored in Swiss-based digital asset bank Sygnum 🧊

🔸 FTX Bankruptcy Team says it managed to recover $7 billion in liquid assets (how "liquid" are those assets is still a question). Token FTT pumps by 35% at peak

🔹 Prices:

🌐 Bitcoin - $30,273 (↓0.77%)
⚙️ Ethereum - $1,857 (↓2.29%)
📈 S&P 500 - 4,328 (↓0.45%)
💲 DXY - 102.75 (↓0.15%)
🌕 Gold - 1,932,70 (↑0.16%)

Bitcoin doesn't even feel their attempts 😎

Apart from some very "strange" coins like BCH and FTT, nothing else shows much growth, and it is alarming. Maybe the trend is exhausted? Hopefully not 🥲

Crypto exchange OKX suspends services for users living in Japan, a message in the app says “OKX Exchange products cannot be used in Japan due to local laws and regulations.”

The United States House of Representatives recently adopted new rules banning all members from using all chatbots except ChatGPT Plus 😑

Indonesia’s regulatory agency made public a comprehensive catalog of 501 crypto assets that are now classified as commodities within the country 😯

🔹 Last 24 hours top 3 gainers:

FLEX Coin - $4.03 (↑14.48%)
Bitcoin Cash - $221.82 (↑14.25%)
Radix - $0.084 (↑9.17%)

#GM

Over the past few months, the eight largest financial institutions in the US alone have shown interest in crypto 🐳

If you combine all of their assets under management, you get a stunning number of $27.3 trillion 😮

Fidelity is preparing to submit a spot bitcoin ETF filing 😮

The rumor turned out to be true. Following BlackRock and others, asset management giant Fidelity ($4.24 trillion in AUM) is close to submitting its own filing for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund 💰

When will the BlackRock ETF be approved 🕐

👆 The picture above is a graphical representation with deadline dates for the response from the SEC regarding the approval of the first spot fund ETF for BTC.

Deadlines for the SEC to approve, decline, or delay the decision:

◾️ First — August 12, 2023

◾️ Second — September 26, 2023

◾️ Third — December 25, 2023

◼️ SEC Final Judgment: February 24, 2024

🤔 What is an ETF?

• An ETF is an Exchange-Traded Fund. It is a type of investment fund that is traded on stock exchanges, just like individual stocks.

• It is designed to track the performance of a specific group of assets, such as stocks, bonds, or commodities. Some are passively managed, while others are actively managed.

• In our case, a spot Bitcoin ETF would be an investment fund that tracks the price of Bitcoin, allowing investors to gain exposure to Bitcoin's price movements without directly owning the cryptocurrency.

🦊 MetaMask Guide and Airdrop

MetaMask is a crypto wallet that is available as a browser extension and mobile application. It allows you to store your crypto and interact with decentralized applications.

📄 Guide to Metamask:

First, we need to install the wallet. If you are using a desktop, go to the download page and install the MetaMask browser extension. If you are using a phone, download the MetaMask app for Android or IOS.

Now that you have the extension or app, you need to create your wallet. Go to MetaMask and click on "Create a new wallet. Set up a strong password. Click on "Secure my wallet" and follow the procedure of a Secret Recovery Phrase creation.

⚠️ Secret Recovery Phrase (seed phrase) needs to be kept secret from anyone. If you lose those 12 secret words — you will lose access to your wallet and all the funds in it.

If someone else gets access to your seed phrase — they can get access to your funds and steal them. It's better to create a few copies of the seed phrase and keep them in a safe place (definitely not online) ⚠️

After you finish setting everything up, you now own an uncensorable and unblockable wallet with which you can do anything you want. You can interact with decentralized finance applications and store crypto. You have access to such blockchains as Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, and many others.

🪂 MetaMask Airdrop:

Metamask is the most popular wallet in crypto; it has millions of users but still doesn't have a token, even though there have been multiple hints that a token will be launched eventually. For this product, even if a small % of the total supply is distributed by #airdrop, it will be massive.

In order to increase our chances of getting a potential airdrop, we will interact with existing MetaMask tools:

👉 Go to the MetaMask portfolio.

Here we have three ways to interact with wallet tools: swaps, bridges, and ETH staking.

❗️It is worth knowing that token swaps and bridges between blockchains inside MetaMask are pretty disadvantageous compared to other alternatives, they charge a 0.875% fee per swap and bridge.

So the next time you need to swap tokens or bridge them, think about if you want to pay an additional fee and use MetaMask to increase your chances of receiving a potential airdrop.

📌 Don't forget to save this list of activities for later

#earn

✅ Even with the help of today's positive news, BTC could not get above the 31k mark and continues to trade in the 30-31k range 🤞

Day summary:

🔸 Asset management giant Fidelity is preparing to submit a spot Bitcoin ETF filing

🔸 The United States House of Representatives banned all members from using AU chatbots, except for ChatGPT Plus 🤖

🔸 Indonesia labels 501 cryptocurrencies as commodities

🔸 Turns out ARK Investment Management, 21Shares, and the Chicago Board Options Exchange filed the spot Bitcoin ETF application back in April 🤔

🔸 Crypto exchange OKX suspends its services in Japan

🔸 BlackRock Bitcoin ETF could be approved as soon as August 12, the maximum delay is until Feb 24, 2024

🔸 Bitcoin miners in Texas curbed operations, crimping power usage, as extreme heat drove electricity prices sky-high ♨️

🔹 Prices:

🌐 Bitcoin - $30,673 (↑1.80%)
⚙️ Ethereum - $1,895 (↑2.72%)
📈 S&P 500 - 4,383 (↑1.27%)
💲 DXY - 102.48 (↓0.21%)
🌕 Gold - 1,924 (↓0.48%)

Bulls strike back 🤣

Bears are pushing us closer and closer to the support level, which bulls should withstand, and they better show a good bounce or things can get ugly really fast 🐻

🥳 Today is Elon Musk's 52nd birthday. Maybe he will pump some coins in celebration?

TrueUSD (TUSD) stablecoin depeged by 10% on Binance US after the token's reserve report showed the project held $26,000 in assets backing the stablecoin at a U.S. depository institution that was ordered to halt withdrawals.

EU officials suspect Binance is faking accounts in Ireland and Malta, indicating that the crypto exchange is obfuscating illicit activity such as money laundering and tax evasion 😵

🔹 Last 24 hours top 3 gainers:

Stellar - $0.103 (↑9.64%)
Kaspa - $0.026 (↑6.61%)
VeChain - $0.019 (↑4.79%)

#GM

Venture investments in metaverse projects are meager 📉

Here is a visual demonstration of how much the narrative in the venture capital world has changed from the metaverse to AI in the last year 🤖

Last year, we had $7.67 billion in investments in the metaverse. Facebook even changed the company name to Meta, and this year in the first half, we have only $707 million invested 🙄

🎵 Global entertainment company Warner Music Group partners with Polygon to launch a music accelerator program

The program aims to onboard the next generation of blockchain music projects and decentralized applications on the Polygon network.

Each month, Polygon announces big partnerships, but it seems like it doesn't really help MATIC token withhold selling pressure 🤷‍♀️

Upcoming token unlocks in the next month 🔓

Remember this post? Notice the proportion between max supply (blue + gray) and circulating supply (gray).

Now try to analyze which of these coins, in the long run, are likely to increase their market capitalization while remaining at the same level of token price, so retail investors are not scared 🔍

#unlocks

$7.8 billion was paid to crypto pyramid schemes in 2022 😓

Remember this today's post? In 2022, $7.68 billion was invested in metaverse projects. The report published by blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs says that in the same year, a stunning $7.8 billion was paid to crypto pyramid schemes. More money was sent to scams than invested in the most hyped technology.

👮 Two of the largest crypto Ponzi schemes prosecuted in 2022, were Forsage and Trade Coin Club. In total, in 2022 $9.04 billion in crypto was sent to all types of financial fraud schemes.

Despite the bear market, it appears that there has been no corresponding slowdown in crypto-related crime. People are simply hungry for easy profits, and that's what the scammers are taking advantage of ☹️