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.
CBOE PULLS BITCOIN ETF APPLICATION: After the Securities and Exchange Commission repeatedly delayed a decision, Cboe Global Markets (CBOE) has pulled its application to list the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. “Cboe’s decision to withdraw its filing with the SEC to list and trade shares of the VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust is a function of timing related to the U.S. government shutdown as the end of the review period approaches,” Cboe said. “We plan to resubmit a filing at a later date and look forward to continued discussions with the SEC.”
HEALTH INSURERS, IBM COLLABORATE ON BLOCKCHAIN PROJECT: On Thursday, Aetna (CVS), Anthem (ANTM), Health Care Service Corporation, PNC Bank (PNC) and IBM (IBM) announced a new collaboration to design and create a network using blockchain technology to improve transparency and interoperability in the healthcare industry. The aim is to create an inclusive blockchain network that can benefit multiple members of the healthcare ecosystem in a highly secure, shared environment and enable healthcare companies to build, share and deploy solutions that drive digital transformation in the industry.
TZERO TOKENS BEGIN LIVE TRADING: Overstock.com's (OSTK) tZERO announced Thursday that secondary trading of tZERO security tokens is now live. Accredited investors can now trade tZERO security tokens with other accredited investors through a digital securities brokerage account at Dinosaur Financial Group, which will act as the introducing broker-dealer.
IDEX ENTERS JV FOR TOUR BUS CONVERSION: Ideanomics (IDEX) announced Wednesday that it has entered into a joint venture agreement with Beijing Central Finova Financial Service to become the exclusive agent for their electric tour bus conversion business, currently targeted to convert up to 800,000 tour buses in China by end of 2022. This tour bus EV conversion agreement has the potential of reaching a value of $118B and Ideanomics will register the records of the EV transactions on the blockchain.
CRYPTO CHATTER: JPMorgan (JPM) Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, who previously called bitcoin a “fraud”, said at Davos that he “didn’t take any” satisfaction from being right after the cryptocurrency fell 80%, CNBC reported Wednesday. The CEO did advocate for bitcoin’s underlying technology, saying, "Blockchain is a real technology -- it's just a database we can all access that's kept up-to-date.” In addition, BCG Digital Ventures founder Jeff Schumacher, an investor in blockchain-based companies said he believed the cryptocurrency would go to zero during a CNBC-hosted crypto panel. “I think it's a great technology but I don't believe it's a currency. It's not based on anything," he said. North Island chairman Glenn Hutchins added, “It might be that the role of bitcoin in the system could be to bring value back, to hold your value there while you have tokens that have other use cases that you aren't using at the moment…I am much less interested in investing around bitcoin as a currency unit or a currency equivalent, or even the blockchain as an accounting ledger. I am thinking much more about the protocols. In other words, what is the underlying protocol going to do as a consequence of which, which tokens are valuable or not.”
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, DPW Holdings (DPW), Kodak (KODK), Ideanomics, Riot Blockchain (RIOT), 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 dropped about 1.9% this week to $3,551 in U.S. dollars, according to TradeBlock.
Bitcoin
+ (+0.00%)
Bitcoin
+ (+0.00%)
Cboe Global Markets
+0.28 (+0.29%)
CVS Health
+0.675 (+1.04%)
Ticker changed to ELV
+3.64 (+1.37%)
PNC Financial
+0.22 (+0.18%)
IBM
-0.02 (-0.02%)
OSTK
+
Ideanomics
+ (+0.00%)
JPMorgan
+0.2 (+0.19%)
AMD
+0.02 (+0.10%)
Nvidia
-5.31 (-3.36%)
Ault Global Holdings
+0.0042 (+4.29%)
Eastman Kodak
+0.02 (+0.76%)
Riot Platforms
+ (+0.00%)
Pareteum
+0.03 (+1.32%)
Srax
+ (+0.00%)