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Metaplanet joins top 10 corporate bitcoin holders

Bitcoin’s had a sluggish week, with the price stalled in the mid-$80,000 range for another week.

President Trump’s hyped appearance for the Digital Asset Summit fell flat as it was simply a short, prerecorded message. Many in the space were hoping for grandiose announcements, but there was nothing of substance in the under three-minute speech.

The president’s son, Eric Trump, made his own crypto news this week. Japanese company Metaplanet, which has been on a bitcoin buying spree, appointed the younger Trump to its newly established strategic board of advisors on Friday.

“This appointment marks a significant step in Metaplanet’s continued mission to drive bitcoin adoption and strengthen its position as a global leader in the bitcoin economy,” the company said in a statement.

Metaplanet also bought 150 bitcoin this week, bringing its stash to 3,200 bitcoin.

“With today’s Bitcoin purchase, Metaplanet has leapfrogged into the Top 10 publicly listed Bitcoin holders globally!” Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich posted on X.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy also added to its stash this week, though it was a relatively small purchase of 130 bitcoin. The company is still leading the stockpiler pack, hodling 499,226 bitcoin.

Finally, psychedelics-focused biotech company ATAI announced it was establishing a bitcoin reserve. Chairman Christian Angermayer said in a post that the company “will invest an initial position of $5 million in bitcoin.”

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Altcoin trading activity has lost its mojo

Non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies have seen their trading volume plummet in the past five months. The combined trading volume of ethereum, XRP, solana, dogecoin, SUI, and chainlink has decreased by 60% since crypto’s October 10 liquidation event, according to Thomas Probst, a research analyst at crypto markets data provider Kaiko.

Main Altcoins Trading Volume in USD
The trading volume of ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, SUI, and LINK.

For all altcoins, spot trading volume on Binance has declined between 80% and 85% to $7.7 billion, while altcoin volume on other exchanges has dropped to $18.8 billion, down from a range of $63 billion to $91 billion in October, a Friday report from Decrypt found, citing data from CryptoQuant.

“This trend may be explained by a contraction in market liquidity over the same period,” Probst told Sherwood News. “This phenomenon is also reflected in the average 1% market depth, which stood at approximately $2.6 million before the October 10 crash and is now closer to $1.7 million when aggregated across ETH, XRP, SOL, SUI, and LINK.” 

Market depth is used by investors and traders to gauge the scale of liquidity in a market. 1% market depth refers to the amount of liquidity needed to move the market by 1%. 

CoinGlass’s Altcoin Season Index, a measure to assess the performance of non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies, has been sitting above 50 this week, suggesting that the current market is neither in a bitcoin dominant phase nor an altcoin season.

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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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