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.
SEC ISSUES GUIDELINES FOR CRYPTO ASSETS: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued guidelines to assist market participants in analyzing whether a digital asset qualifies as a security under federal securities law and needs to be registered, Reuters’ John McCrank reported Wednesday. To help determine whether a digital asset is a security, the SEC said both it and the federal courts have looked to see whether the asset has any characteristics of an “investment contract," which “exists when there is the investment of money in a common enterprise with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the efforts of others.” The agency said whether the digital asset is an investment contract at the time of offer or sale depends on specific circumstances.
MYSTERY ORDER BOOSTS BITCOIN: A big anonymous order triggered a frenzy of computer-driven trading driving Bitcoin "to its highest in almost five months”, Reuters’ Tom Wilson and Tommy Wilkes reported Tuesday. BCB Group chief executive officer Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie said the gain was probably set off by an order worth roughly $100M spread across Coinbase, Kraken and Bitstamp. “There has been a single order that has been algorithmically-managed across these three venues, of around 20,000 BTC,” he said. “If you look at the volumes on each of those three exchanges – there were in-concert, synchronized, units of volume of around 7,000 BTC in an hour”.
PRIVATE-JET FIRM GETS PASS FOR UNREGULATED ICO: The SEC told Turnkey Jet that it can issue “digital tokens” to people who sign up for its membership program, which they can then use to charter a private jet, the Wall Street Journal’s Dave Michaels and Gabriel Rubin reported Wednesday. The company agreed its tokens would only trade between members of the program and that it wouldn’t be able to by them back at premium. The relief from federal oversight marks the SEC’s first ‘no-action’ letter for a cryptocurrency business.
TZERO NAMES RETAIL BROKER-DEALER CEO: tZERO, a portfolio company of Medici Ventures, the blockchain subsidiary of Overstock (OSTK), announced Tuesday that Elliot Grossman has been appointed CEO of its upcoming broker-dealer affiliate. Grossman, who was most recently the managing director of equity trading at institutional brokerage firm Dinosaur Financial Group, will oversee the establishment and management of the anticipated retail brokerage services affiliate.
ANALYST RAISES PRICE TARGET ON RIOT BLOCKCHAIN: On Tuesday, Riot Blockchain (RIOT) reported revenue of approximately $7.7M on the production of 1,081 bitcoins and 3,023 litecoins and net loss of approximately $58M for the year. In a Friday research note, H.C. Wainwright analyst Kevin Dede raised his price target for Riot Blockchain to $5 from $4 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. While the company's full-year filing implies Q4 mining slowed, the "ramifications are deemed irrelevant" by the recent bitcoin pricing trend, Dede said. The analyst believes that while the Riot Blockchain share price still appears clearly driven by bitcoin pricing, the company represents "far more than a simplistic crypto mining operation."
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 (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 23.6% this week to $5,032, in U.S. dollars, according to TradeBlock.
Bitcoin
+ (+0.00%)
Bitcoin
+ (+0.00%)
OSTK
+
Riot Platforms
-1.1 (-20.75%)
AMD
-0.09 (-0.31%)
Nvidia
-0.67 (-0.35%)
Ault Global Holdings
-0.0413 (-12.95%)
Eastman Kodak
-0.05 (-1.72%)
Ideanomics
+ (+0.00%)
Pareteum
+0.06 (+1.22%)
Srax
+0.12 (+2.77%)