Weekly Review: Bitcoin Nears $70,000 as SEC Delays ETH-ETF Decision

Bitcoin approached $70,000, MicroStrategy plans to issue $600 million in bonds to buy Bitcoin, the SEC postponed its decision on a spot Ethereum-ETF, Do Kwon is to be extradited to South Korea, and other events of the past week.

Bitcoin Nears $70,000

On Monday, March 4, the price of the leading cryptocurrency surpassed $66,000. The following day, the asset’s price reached a new all-time high above $69,000. By Friday, March 8, digital gold was close to the $70,000 mark.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $69,600.

Most digital assets in the top 10 by market capitalization ended the week in the “green zone.” BNB (+27.1%) and Dogecoin (+23.5%) saw the largest gains.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization is $2.75 trillion. Bitcoin’s dominance index is 53.7%.

MicroStrategy to Issue $600 Million in Bonds to Buy Bitcoin

MicroStrategy will raise $600 million through the issuance of convertible bonds for qualified investors. The funds will be used for “purchasing additional bitcoins and general corporate purposes.”

The issuance will depend on “market and other conditions.”

The unsecured senior bonds will mature in 2030. From 2027, MicroStrategy may convert the securities into shares. On September 15, 2028, holders can demand their redemption.

MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor spoke of a “gold rush” for the first cryptocurrency. According to him, spot Bitcoin ETFs have led to the rapid adoption of digital gold among institutions.

SEC Delays Decision on BlackRock’s Spot Ethereum-ETF

The SEC extended the review period for BlackRock’s application to launch a spot Ethereum-ETF. The regulator made a similar decision regarding a proposal from Fidelity. The commission will continue to gather public comments.

Both investment giants submitted applications to register exchange-traded funds based on the spot price of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap in November 2023.

Topics to Discuss with Friends

• Notcoin opened the pre-market for the NOT token.
• Experts see the meme coin rally as a sign of an emerging altseason.
• Analysts calculated the number of bitcoins held by SpaceX and Tesla.
• The second most expensive CryptoPunk was sold for $16 million.

Do Kwon to Be Extradited to South Korea

Terraform Labs (TFL) co-founder Do Kwon will be extradited to South Korea. This decision was made by the High Court of Montenegro.

On March 5, the country’s Appellate Court overturned the approval of TFL’s head’s transfer to U.S. authorities.

Earlier, lawyers succeeded in similar motions regarding Kwon’s extradition to U.S. and South Korean judicial authorities on December 19 and February 8 respectively.

According to The Block, on March 7, South Korea’s National Police Agency urged Interpol to assist in Kwon’s extradition. The agency emphasized that their request was made before the U.S.

However, Bloomberg reports that U.S. prosecutors will continue to seek Kwon’s extradition.

CommEX Calculates Revenues of Bitcoin Exchanges Serving Russians

In Russia, there are about 6 million active cryptocurrency traders, with an average monthly transaction volume of $8,000. This was stated by Anton Toroptsev, regional director of the CommEX exchange in Russia and the CIS.

According to him, with an average commission ranging from 0.02% in the futures market to 0.1% in the spot market and an average monthly “check” of $8,000 per trader, the total revenues of crypto exchanges serving users from Russia could reach $25 million per month or about 30 billion rubles per year.

This estimate was disputed by Garantex’s marketing director, Evgenia Burova. According to her calculations, the monthly turnover of cryptocurrencies in the Russian market on such exchanges is about 250 billion rubles. 

Also on ForkLog:

• Wormhole conducted an airdrop of 617 million W tokens.
• An expert predicted Bitcoin at $10.6 million by 2045.
• A Bitcoin whale cashed out 1,000 BTC from 2010.
• Aevo launched a pre-market for its own token ahead of an airdrop.

Robert Kiyosaki Raises Bitcoin Forecast to $300,000

Author of the bestseller “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki predicted the first cryptocurrency’s rise to $300,000 this year and offered advice to investors.

“Bitcoin is on fire. The biggest mistake you can make is delaying. It’s important to start, even with $500. The next stop is $300,000 in 2024,” he wrote.

What Else to Read?

This week, ForkLog explained what parallelization is and how it helps scale blockchains, as well as what makes the USDe stablecoin interesting.

In the traditional digest, we compiled the main events of the week in the field of cybersecurity.

The cryptocurrency industry is attracting an increasing number of institutional players. This is evidenced by new investments in infrastructure and the growing attention companies are paying to Bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of recent weeks are in ForkLog’s review.