As bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies get increasing attention from investors, Wall Street and its traditional banks continue to adjust to the shift. Catch up on this week's top stories highlighting the intersection of these old guard and new school areas of finance with this recap compiled by The Fly.
FACEBOOK SEEKS TWO FOR CALIBRA MARKETING: Facebook (FB) is seeking a head of media, digital marketing and community and a head of brand for its Calibra digital wallet unit, according to two job postings on the Calibra site. According to the postings, the head of media will be engaged in building acquisition and cross-sell strategies as well as creating customer segments and audiences that can be used in engagement programs. The head of brand is set to develop mobile-first creative campaigns with assets across the marketing mix to promote the company to over 2.5B worldwide.
DERIBIT PLANS MOVE TO PANAMA: Deribit, an exchange for trading cryptocurrency options, announced Thursday that it would move to Panama amid the Netherlands' likely adoption of new European Union regulations. In a client letter, the exchange said, “ On February 10, 2020, the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange platform that you are using via Deribit.com or related interfaces will no longer be operated by the Dutch company Deribit B.V., but by DRB Panama Inc., a 100% subsidiary of the Dutch entity…The Platform will move to Panama, as we wish to continue offering an easily accessible trading platform at very low costs. Currently, Deribit is operating in the Netherlands. However, the Netherlands will most likely adopt a very strict implementation of new EU regulations that also apply to crypto companies. If Deribit falls under these new regulations, this would mean that we have to demand an extensive amount of information from our current and future customers. We believe that crypto markets should be freely available to most, and the new regulations would put too high barriers for the majority of traders, both – regulatory and cost-wise.”
ARGO OFFERS TO PURCHASE QUADRIGA CLAIMS: Investor Argo Partners is offering to buy claims against the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX, Bloomberg’s Olga Kharif and Doug Alexander reported Thursday. “We offer an upfront, guaranteed payment and also the ability to share distributions if they go above a certain point,” Jonathan Maruri, head of trading at Argo, said in a LinkedIn message. “Given the unknowns in a case like this, we have found it useful to offer creditors deals that lock in rates of recovery early in the case while also protecting themselves from the case taking a turn for the better.” Maruri declined to comment on the specific offer for the claims of Quadriga, which is currently in bankruptcy proceedings and is being probed by Canadian and U.S. authorities.
DPW ACQUISITION NOT APPROVED IN CURRENT FORM: DPW Holdings' (DPW) provided an update on Wednesday on an agreement to acquire two broker-dealers, consisting of Glendale Securities and its correspondent clearing broker dealer. The closing of the agreement is subject to customary conditions, including regulatory clearance, which consists principally of approval by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. On January 7, the firms held a meeting with representatives of FINRA and were, to DPW's knowledge, informed by FINRA that the proposed transaction would not be approved in its current form. As a result, the firms have withdrawn their applications seeking FINRA's approval. The company is presently evaluating its options with respect to the agreement, including whether the agreement, possibly in modified form, could reasonably be expected to close in the foreseeable future.
RIOT BEGINS DEPLOYING BITMAIN ANTMINERS: Riot Blockchain (RIOT) announced Wednesday that it received approximately 3,000 S17 Pro Antminers from BitmainTech, arriving at Riot's Oklahoma City mining facility in late December 2019. The Riot teamcommenced deploying the new S17 Pro generation miners. Riot anticipates receipt of the second order of 1,000 S17 Pro Antminers from Bitmain during in January. The full upgrade of its Oklahoma City mining facility to the new S17 Pro generation of miners could be completed over approximately the next four weeks, it said. Riot estimates the aggregate operating hashrate at the Oklahoma City mining facility, assuming full utilization of the facility's current total 12 MW available electric supply and full deployment of the total 4,000 next generation miners, to be approximately 248 petahash per second.
CRYPTO STOCK PLAYS: Cryptocurrency revenues have been pointed to as reasons to be bullish on Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Nvidia (NVDA) in select research. Overstock (OSTK), DPW Holdings, Kodak (KODK), Ideanomics (IDEX), Riot Blockchain, Pareteum (TEUM) and Social Reality (SRAX) are other stocks that have been touted, or promoted themselves, as a way to play the crypto theme.
PRICE ACTION: As of time of writing, bitcoin rose roughly 7.8% this week to $7,950 in U.S. dollars, according to TradeBlock.
Bitcoin
+ (+0.00%)
Bitcoin
+ (+0.00%)
Ticker changed to META
+0.98 (+0.45%)
Ault Global Holdings
-0.055 (-3.63%)
Riot Platforms
-0.01 (-0.76%)
AMD
-0.31 (-0.63%)
Nvidia
+4.06 (+1.67%)
OSTK
+
Eastman Kodak
+0.17 (+5.23%)
Ideanomics
+0.0172 (+2.32%)
Pareteum
+0.0449 (+6.85%)
Srax
-0.13 (-5.04%)