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A bitcoin sign (Artur Widak/Getty Images)

Bitcoin ETFs finally reverse trend, see over $330 million in inflows

The coin’s price is trending up too.

Wednesday is turning out to be a big day for bitcoin, with American Bitcoin, Hut 8 subsidiary backed by the Trump brothers, debuting today. Shares jumped 91% this morning and were up 44% in early afternoon trading.

Bitcoin spot ETFs finally reversed their outflow trend to net $332.7 million in inflows on Tuesday, according to SoSoValue, while bitcoin’s price is regaining some ground, up 1.3% in the last 24 hours.

In other bitcoin news...

  • Treasury, a euro-denominated bitcoin treasury company, announced it has raised $147 million, backed by Winklevoss Capital and Nakamoto Holdings. The company has acquired 1,000 bitcoin, according to the press release.

  • Riot Platforms announced it produced 477 bitcoin in last month, “an all-time high for Riot in the month of August” and a 48% year-over-year increase, Riot CEO Jason Les said in a press release (though August’s bitcoin production also represents a 2% month-over-month decrease). The bitcoin miner now holds 19,239 bitcoin.

  • Strategy announced it has increased the dividend on its perpetual preferred stock STRC to 10% from 9%. Mark Palmer, a Benchmark analyst, wrote that despite retail traders blaming the firm for mismanaging “the capital-markets side of the companys bitcoin accumulation strategy, thereby causing the stocks recent and uncharacteristic weakness,” he believes that “gets the causality backwards.” The stock has tumbled more than 10% in the past month. Despite the stocks underperformance, Benchmark reiterated its “buy” rating on the company with a price target of $705 because it remains “the industry standard and benchmark due not only the size of its holdings, but also the financial architecture it has built around bitcoin,” Palmer wrote.

Meanwhile, TD analysts also reiterated their “buy” rating on Strategy. They cut their price target, though, to $640 from $680.

“Bears have pounced on the companys return to common stock issuance, as if issuing shares at a premium to bitcoin value — in order to purchase more bitcoin — is suddenly a bad idea,” analysts wrote in a note.

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Payward, parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, puts plans for IPO on hold

Payward, crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company, has paused its plans for an initial public offering until market conditions improve, according to a report from CoinDesk that cited two people with knowledge of the matter. 

Since the firm announced in November its preparation for an IPO of its common stock, the total market capitalization of the crypto industry has shed around $652.2 billion, from $3.2 trillion to $2.5 trillion as of Wednesday, data from CoinGecko shows. 

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions. 

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions. 

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

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SEC and CFTC issue new guidance on how securities laws apply to crypto assets

On Tuesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, together with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, issued an interpretation clarifying how federal securities law applies to crypto assets, a first step toward developing a clearer regulatory framework. 

The interpretive guidance introduces a token taxonomy for different types of cryptocurrencies, with SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins adding that “most crypto assets are not themselves securities.”

Examples of a digital commodity, “a crypto asset that is intrinsically linked to and derives its value from the programmatic operation of a crypto system that is ‘functional,’” include:

The guidance also includes definitions of digital collectibles (such as NFTs), stablecoins, digital tools, and digital securities (such as tokenized real-world assets and stocks).

This is a monumental step in the mainstream adoption of the industry and clears a hurdle in how crypto can operate going forward, according to David Pakman, head of venture investments at CoinFund. “This will allow new token designs with the confidence that their existence does not require registration with the SEC, etc.,” Pakman told Sherwood News.

Despite the clarification efforts from the two organizations, the market capitalization of the crypto industry has dropped about 2% in the last 24 hours as each of the tokens mentioned in the guidance are trading lower in the period, data from CoinGecko shows.

The joint agency action also complements congressional efforts to turn a crypto market structure framework into law. With the goal of providing regulations on the offer and sale of digital commodities, the CLARITY Act passed the House of Representatives last year and is now sitting in the Senate.

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