Week in review: Ethereum nears $3,000 as Tesla sells $272m of Bitcoin

Ethereum broke above $2900 and attempted to breach the symbolic $3000 level.

According to CoinGecko, the new all-time high stood at $2961.56.

At the time of writing, the coin, after a correction, remains above $2900.

IntoTheBlock experts say that the current rally is driven by institutional players — over the past 7 days there were large transactions (over $100,000) totaling $116 billion, with cumulative outflows from exchanges of $10.45 billion.

$ETH is unstoppable

Some interesting facts
-0.26 correlation with $BTC (multi-year low on )
Record Perpetual Swaps Volume (April 23 with $77b)
100% addresses profitability
$10.45b in exchanges outflows over the past 7-days
$116b in transactions >$100k over the past 7-days pic.twitter.com/8wvRVBFTP3

— IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) May 1, 2021

Guggenheim’s Chief Investment Officer Scott Minerd, in an interview with Bloomberg, confirmed institutional interest in the second-largest cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin began the week dipping below $50,000 again. The price quickly recovered, and by week’s end the flagship had risen to the $56,000-$57,000 range.

JPMorgan executives, in an interview with Bloomberg, suggested that Ethereum will keep rising faster than Bitcoin for three main reasons: more liquid liquidity; less reliance on derivatives — lower leverage; and a stronger demand base — DeFi and other sectors where cryptocurrency plays a key role.

Fundstrat predicted further growth for Ethereum to levels above $10,000 in 2021. They also cited a shift in investor focus toward DeFi and Web 3.0 sectors where crypto plays a central role.

During the week, targets in the top-10 by market cap reached new all-time highs for tokens BNB on Binance and UNI of the Uniswap DeFi project.

According to Messari, the week’s most profitable coin was SNM from the SONM decentralized cloud computing project — up over 1053%. Rounding out the top-10, OKB from the OKex exchange rose nearly 125% to enter the top-20 by market cap.

The week’s weakest performer was Cashaa’s Bitcoin-exchange token, which fell 31.9%.

The cryptocurrency market cap stood at about $2.29 trillion, with Bitcoin’s dominance index slipping to 46.2%. Ethereum’s market share rose to 14.8%.

Tesla sells a portion of its Bitcoin holdings for $272m

The automaker Tesla sold part of its assets in the first cryptocurrency for $272 million. The report on the first-quarter 2021 year-end states this.

Tesla valued the profit from selling digital gold at $101 million.

According to Elon Musk, the carmaker sold 10% of its Bitcoin to test market liquidity.

Earlier this year the company invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. Chief Financial Officer Zach Kirkhorn described this as a solid use of cash reserves.

He noted that Tesla is satisfied with Bitcoin liquidity and will continue to accumulate digital assets from EV sales for Bitcoin.

“We believe in the value of Bitcoin in the long term”, — said Kirkhorn.

Taproot activation begins on the Bitcoin network

After the events on Saturday, May 1, the block #681,408 difficulty adjustment, mining pools may signal support for the Taproot upgrade.

Miners supporting the upgrade will start embedding a special data field known as the signal bit in mined blocks. SlushPool was the first to do so.

The first block signalling for Taproot has been mined

Congrats to @slush pic.twitter.com/vKfZ7GWEFF

— BitMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) May 2, 2021

JPMorgan to launch Bitcoin fund

The financial group JPMorgan Chase plans to open access for certain clients to Bitcoin via a Bitcoin fund providing access to Bitcoin via a Bitcoin fund. Bloomberg reports.

The investment instrument is expected to launch in the summer of 2021. One source said that custody would be entrusted to the New York Digital Investment Group.

BaFin flags potential violations by Binance in tokenised shares launch

BaFin warned investors about possible breaches of securities laws in the launch of trading tokenised shares.

Earlier reports suggested UK and German regulators would scrutinise whether tokenised stock trading complied with local law.

The regulator concluded that Binance’s German unit was offering “securities in token form.”

“Public offering of securities without an approved securities prospectus is a breach of EU regulations”, — the regulator said in a statement.

On April 26 Binance announced the listing of tokens backed by a portfolio of real-world securities from MicroStrategy, Apple and Microsoft.

From mid-month Tesla shares were among the first to trade on the platform.

Disaster Girl meme sold for 180 ETH

The meme heroine Zoe Roth sold the famous image as an NFT for 180 ETH (nearly $528,000 at press time).

The token was put up for auction on April 16. The price rose to 180 ETH, then valued at around $430,000. The NFT was purchased by a user under the handle 3FMusic.

Roth will retain copyright and will receive 10% of every resale of the NFT.

Meanwhile, hacker Monsieur Personne created forged copies of Beeple’s most expensive NFT painting, Everydays: The First 5000 Days, to debunk the myth of NFT uniqueness and security.

This involved forged cryptographic proofs of ownership of the original artwork.

ForkLog hosted the conference “NFT Fever: Tokenisation of Art” on April 26.

Some speaker opinions were collected on the site:

• Co-founder of Rarible explained why digital art has become the leader in the NFT space.
• A lawyer explained when the SEC will classify NFT as a security.
• Mneniyae: belief in NFT is inversely proportional to belief in Bitcoin.

Ukraine’s Financial Intelligence: how suspicious crypto transactions are tracked

Ukraine’s State Financial Monitoring Service tracks the turnover of virtual assets using specialised software and other sources, the head of the agency Ihor Cherkasky said.

He noted that the agency also receives information on suspicious digital-currency trades from law-enforcement authorities, foreign financial-intelligence divisions, and crypto-service providers including exchanges and exchangers.

These firms are primary financial-monitoring subjects and are required to report their suspicions, Cherkasky added.

Verkhovna Rada recommended passing the virtual assets bill on second reading

The Committee on Digital Transformation urged the Verkhovna Rada to approve the “On Virtual Assets” bill in the second reading. Deputy Digital Transformation Minister Oleksandr Borynyakov said so.

In the revised bill, the committee included current international standards for regulating digital-asset operations, noted he.

According to Borynyakov, bringing digital assets into a legal framework would ensure lawful operation of international crypto exchanges, allow citizens to tokenize property rights, and provide the state with judicial protection of crypto rights.

Foreign regulators refused to assist the SEC in Ripple case

Foreign regulators rejected the SEC’s requests for cooperation in the Ripple matter after the company failed to provide documents on XRP transfers abroad.

The SEC analysed wallets linked to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen. The commission found hundreds of millions of XRP transferred to accounts of exchanges not registered in the United States.

The SEC approached nine foreign regulators for documents from 14 trading venues and five companies. Two agencies refused to help, three prohibited disclosures, and the rest declined the requests.

Nexon invests $100m in Bitcoin

Asian video-game publisher Nexon said it bought 1,717 BTC at an average price of around $58,226. The total investment of $100m represents under 2% of the company’s funds.

“In the current economic environment, Bitcoin offers long-term stability and liquidity, preserving the value of our assets for future investments”, — Nexon CEO Owen Mahoney said.

PayPal CEO: demand for cryptocurrencies exceeded company expectations

PayPal CEO Dan Schulman told TIME that demand for digital assets has surpassed the company’s expectations.

He added that in the next 5-10 years the financial system will undergo more change than in the previous 10-20 years.

“In ten years you’ll see a colossal decline in cash usage. All payment form factors will move to mobile phones”, — Schulman said.

Mark Cuban: Robinhood policy hinders Dogecoin growth

Restrictions on withdrawals for crypto trading on the Robinhood app are the biggest obstacle to Dogecoin’s growth, — according to Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks.

In his view, the meme-coin is the only token people actually use for transactions.

“We have plenty of other payments via BitPay. People spend Dogecoin, and that means more merchants will start accepting it. The biggest hurdle to its growth is you can’t spend the Robinhood-purchased tokens”, Cuban wrote.

Robinhood co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev replied to the critique by the billionaire.

MicroStrategy announces new Bitcoin purchases

The Nasdaq-listed analytics software firm MicroStrategy will continue to invest in Bitcoin using cash reserves, said CEO Michael Saylor.

Compared with the same period in 2020, the company’s overall revenue rose 10.3% to $122m. The driver was a sharp rise in licensing and subscription services revenues — up 52.3% to $31.3m.

“MicroStrategy’s results reflect the success of the corporate analytics-software business strategy and Bitcoin acquisitions. These lines generate substantial shareholder value”, said the company’s CEO Michael Saylor.

The MicroStrategy chief said he is pleased with the approach to buying the first cryptocurrency and plans to continue following it in the future.

Core Scientific to buy 112,800 Bitcoin miners from Bitmain

US blockchain-hosting provider Core Scientific announced an agreement with Chinese manufacturer Bitmain to buy 112,800 devices for Bitcoin mining.

The batch will comprise Antminer S19, S19 Pro, S19J and S19J Pro models.

According to the statement, after the purchase Core Scientific will more than double its mining fleet and its hash rate will reach 18.1 EH/s.

ForkLog has also reported:

• DeFi project 1inch launched the 1inch Wallet app for iOS.
• Gemini and Mastercard will issue a crypto-backed cashback credit card.
• BNY Mellon admits a mistaken gold position instead of Bitcoin.
• Visa chief said of the company’s wide cryptocurrency opportunities.
• Paxos raised $300m from Oak and PayPal Ventures.
• Fed chair stated the possibility of a digital dollar.
• Uranium Finance lost $50m in Ethereum due to a vulnerability.

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