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Peter Thiel’s fund reveals 9.1% stake in BitMine, shares explode higher

Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund bought a 9.1% stake in BitMine Immersion Technologies, according to SEC filings, a major vote of confidence in the crypto mining and (newly launched) ethereum treasury company from the billionaire cofounder of PayPal and Palantir.

Shares are soaring 17% in premarket trading on the news, bringing year-to-date gains to the cusp of 500%.

Earlier this week, BitMine announced that its ethereum holdings exceeded $500 million, totaling 163,142 ethereum, following the closing of its $250 million private placement.

“We are pleased that we added significantly to our ETH treasury just 3 days after closing our private placement,” Jonathan Bates, BitMine Immersion Technologies CEO, said in the press release. “Clearly, Wall Street is getting ‘ETH-pilled.’”

On June 30, BitMine announced the launch of its ethereum treasury and named Tom Lee, founder of Fundstrat and CIO of Fundstrat Capital, chairman of the board of directors, propelling the stock up 400%.

Ethereum has also been on a roll, outpacing bitcoin in the past 24 hours.

“Seeing ethereum breaking out above $3,100 during a bitcoin rally isn’t just market noise — we are finally seeing the cyclical shift in bitcoin dominance that signals the start of ETH’s outperformance. And the most promising part is that this growth is, maybe for the first time, not fueled by hype, but by tangible institutional behavior,” Kevin Rusher, founder of real-world asset borrowing and lending ecosystem RAAC, told Sherwood News.

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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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