Stories by Andrew Throuvalas
Another Satoshi-Era Bitcoin Whale Is Moving Coins After 15 Years
An unidentified Bitcoin user who mined some of the network’s earliest blocks is now sending their blockchain rewards to centralized crypto exchange Kraken, according to on-chain data. Analysts at Arkham Intelligence said that the O.G. Bitcoin whale—who now holds $77 million worth of BTC that was mined during the Bitcoin network's first couple months—has already moved 10 BTC ($630,000) to the cryptocurrency exchange across three separate transactions. Arkham said the miner “woke up” on-chain just...
Will Bitcoin ETF Options Send the Asset to the Moon?
There will soon be a regulated options market for U.S. Bitcoin ETFs. But what does that mean, and how will this impact the price of Bitcoin? On Friday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) greenlighted Nasdaq to list and trade options for the iShares Bitcoin Trust—BlackRock’s $22 billion Bitcoin ETF whose shares track the price of Bitcoin. According to analysts, introducing options will make Bitcoin a more functional investment asset across the board. Options are derivative instru...
Satoshi-Era Bitcoin Miner Moves Coins for First Time in 15 Years
Some of the very first Bitcoins ever mined are seeing signs of life more than 15 years after entering circulation, on-chain data shows. Since early Friday, at least 5 separate Bitcoin block rewards moved to new addresses for the first time since being mined as part of a new Bitcoin block. A closer look at those transactions reveals several of those rewards were generated in late January 2009—the same month the Bitcoin network first went live. For example, one transaction at 02:30 ET on Friday ca...
RFK Jr. Comes Out Swinging Against Bitcoin Mining 'Myths'
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who suspended his campaign to back Republican Donald Trump, but remains on the ballot in some states—is defending the Bitcoin mining industry from its chorus of media critics concerned about the industry’s impact on the environment. In a letter to The Economist, Kennedy took issue with the publication’s characterization of the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining, writing that an energy system inclusive of miners is “far less carbon-inte...
BlackRock Says Clients Are Buying Bitcoin to Hedge Against US Debt Crisis
Is Bitcoin a “risk-on” or “risk-off” asset? Analysts at the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock say the leading digital currency qualifies as neither. In a PowerPoint document shared Wednesday, BlackRock said its clients largely view Bitcoin as insurance against a possible U.S. debt crisis, and that Bitcoin has “little fundamental exposure” to the macro variables that affect other asset classes. Some of its defining attributes, BlackRock analysts noted, are Bitcoin’s limited supply supply, g...
DeFi Technologies Prepares for Nasdaq Listing Following Bitcoin Treasury Play
A high-performance Canadian crypto stock is vying for a U.S. stock market listing, potentially opening the company to an army of hungry new investors. DeFi Technologies—parent company to various crypto-focused subsidiaries, notably exchange traded fund (ETF) operator Valour—currently trades on Cboe Canada under the DEFI ticker, and over OTC markets under DEFTF. On Monday, the company announced that it had filed a Form 40-F registration statement with the SEC to also get listed on the Nasdaq stoc...
Public Bitcoin Miners Are Taking Over—But Their Stock Keeps Dropping
The largest Bitcoin mining companies are steadily claiming greater dominance over Bitcoin’s network security, even though their stock performance this year might not suggest such success. JP Morgan analysts summed up the current state of the market in their “September ’24 Bitcoin Mining Halftime Report" published Monday, noting that publicly listed U.S. mining companies saw their piece of the network hash rate pie expand for the fifth straight month—to a record 26.7%. Hash rate measures the pace...
MicroStrategy, Coinbase Stock Dip as Bitcoin Price Momentum Cools
Crypto stocks across the board took a dive at Monday’s open after Bitcoin failed to maintain its early weekend momentum, but some are starting to rebound as the day goes on. At 9:45 am ET, Coinbase (COIN) fell 4% to $156.63. MicroStrategy (MSTR), the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, dipped by 5% to about $133, while the Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI) fell by the same amount to a price of nearly $16. By comparison, the S&P 500 traded flat, and the Nasdaq 100 traded 0.5% down at Monda...
Bitcoin's Scaling Boom: 5 Projects Upgrading Bitcoin Without Changing Its Code
Over the past year, Bitcoin has evolved at an unprecedented pace. A so-called “Bitcoin Renaissance” has ushered in NFTs, token standards, staking, and dozens of new scaling solutions and “Layer 2s” built upon the oldest, most popular blockchain. In fact, while Bitcoin’s recent price action has been volatile, developers say the network’s biggest stories are unfolding under the hood—and that its most exciting times are likely just months away. Here’s a look at five projects that are redefining wha...
US Dollar Is Taking Over the World Thanks to Stablecoins: Report
Stablecoins are boosting U.S. dollar dominance around the world in countries that otherwise have no access to the currency, according to a new report sponsored by global payment giant Visa. Authored by Castle Island Ventures and Brevan Howard Digital, the report outlined how stablecoins adoption is rising irrespective of crypto’s market cycles, and gaining adoption as a monetary instrument for reasons unrelated to digital asset trading and speculation. For example, data from Visa and Allium Labs...
European Central Bank Drops Interest Rates Again as Bitcoin, Stocks Bounce Back
The European Central Bank (ECB) dropped the interest rate for its deposit lending facility by another 25 basis points on Thursday, reaffirming its newly dovish monetary policy stance—and Bitcoin and major stock market indices are slightly up following the news. The central bank expects core inflation to rapidly decline over the next two years. That said, its latest projections for economic growth are now weaker than they were in June, and economic activity remains “subdued” due to weak private c...
What Is Fractal? What You Need to Know About the Buzzy Bitcoin Scaler
A hot and highly anticipated Bitcoin scaling network went live this week, although its code is almost indistinguishable from Bitcoin’s own layer-1 blockchain. What gives? On Sunday, Fractal Bitcoin announced the mainnet launch of its Bitcoin sidechain network. As a tribute, Fractal included in its genesis block the same message embedded in Bitcoin’s first block concerning bank bailouts—attributed to pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Despite a rocky start concerning some of its block mining...
Another Solo Bitcoin Miner Wins Block, Nabs $180,000 Reward
An unknown, standalone Bitcoin miner scored $180,000 on Tuesday, defeating overwhelming odds to mine one of Bitcoin’s latest blocks. According to mempool.space, block 860749 was mined by Solo CK—a unique mining pool that doesn’t split mining rewards between its participants. That means one miner won a full 3.169 BTC (worth about $181,000 as of writing) for their efforts, inclusive of Bitcoin’s full block subsidy and the block’s transaction fees. ANOTHER solo miner mining a #Bitcoin block and cl...
Bitcoin Liquid Staking Comes to Zest Protocol on Stacks With BTCz
With staking becoming a reality for Bitcoin's own layer-1, you’ll just as soon be able to trade liquid staking tokens on Bitcoin layer-2 networks. Zest Protocol, a Bitcoin decentralized finance (DeFi) service available on Stacks, announced the launch of BTCz on Thursday—a BTC equivalent that will earn yield for holders through the fast-rising Babylon staking system. “The BTC yield comes from Babylon staking or other BTC staking protocols that might launch in the future,” said Tycho Onnasch, co-f...
Bitcoin Could ‘Slowly Leak’ Toward $50,000 Before Its Next Surge: Arthur Hayes
Bitcoin is still due for more sideways turbulence—and potentially some more bleeding—before shooting to the sky later this month, according to BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes. In his latest piece, the famous crypto essayist and macro-analyst admitted that his previous prediction that Bitcoin’s bull market would “begin anew” in September was incorrect, but that his bearishness remains “temporary.” “I have changed my mind, but it doesn’t affect my positioning at all. I’m still long as fuck in an un...
Bitcoin Miner Riot Calls Out ‘Concerning’ Moves From Bitfarms Amid Attempted Takeover
Bitcoin mining giant Riot Platforms provided an investor update on Tuesday concerning its effort to take over Bitfarms, a smaller Canadian rival that’s been resisting the former’s attempted hostile takeover. Riot offered its views on recent shakeups with Bitfarms’ board of directors, including the resignations of co-founders Emiliano Grodzki and Nicolas Bonta in recent months, whom Riot had previously targeted for replacement. “While these changes represent a step in the right direction, they ha...
Bitcoin OP_CAT Upgrade: Can Revived Satoshi Code Transform the Top Blockchain?
Bitcoin’s developer ecosystem is the hottest it has been in years. Projects, tools, and proposals to unlock new decentralized applications for the OG crypto network are now part of the mainstream Bitcoin conversation. One proposal central to that conversation is BIP-347, or “OP_CAT”—though called BIP-420 by some proponents—a potential soft fork upgrade that proponents think could supercharge Bitcoin’s capabilities. At a bare-bones level, what OP_CAT does is allow users to join, or “concatenate,”...
Native BTC Staking Is Coming to Bitcoin Layer-2 Networks, Babylon Says
Staking Bitcoin is fast becoming a reality—a functionality once the sole privilege of proof-of-stake crypto networks. Thanks to Babylon, HODLers can already lock up their BTC, which will soon be used to secure and earn yield from multiple staking-based blockchains at a time. While this has enormous implications for the entire crypto economy, its consequences may be most strongly felt in an ecosystem that’s just getting started: Bitcoin layer-2 networks. “Bitcoin L2s [are] definitely a very impor...
Nigerian SEC Issues First Crypto Exchange Licenses After Industry Crackdown
The Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued its first licenses to local crypto exchanges to operate within the country, despite contentious relations between the government and industry at large. Per an SEC press release, both Busha Digital Limited and Quidax Technologies Limited have been granted “approval-in-principle” to operate under its Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Program (ARIP). The agency said the development is part of its “commitment to enabling innovation tha...
Rate Cuts Won‘t Boost Bitcoin On Their Own, Says Arthur Hayes
Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell confirmed last week that the central bank’s long-awaited pivot is just around the corner. But is this actually bullish for Bitcoin? Conventional wisdom says yes, but BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes—a near perennial Bitcoin bull—says it's more complicated than that. “We are forgetting that these future anticipated rate cuts by the Fed, Bank of England, and European Central Bank reduce the interest rate differential between these currencies and the yen,” wrote...
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