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.
COINBASE ACQUIRES XAPO’S INSTITUTIONAL BUSINESS: Coinbase announced in a Thursday blog post that Coinbase Custody has completed an acquisition of Xapo's institutional businesses. "This acquisition caps off a tremendous period of growth and innovation for Coinbase Custody. In just over one year since launch, Coinbase Custody has grown to over $7B in Assets Under Custody stored on behalf of more than 120 clients in 14 different countries, making it the largest, most globally recognized and most trusted institutional custodian in the world. From the start, our goal has been to build the trusted foundation for institutional investment in Bitcoin and crypto assets in general. We're thrilled to help enable some of the tremendous demand for this emerging asset class.” Additionally, CoinDesk’s Ian Allison reported Wednesday that Barclays (BCS) is no longer working with Coinbase. While Coinbase found a replacement in U.K. upstart ClearBank, people familiar with the situation say the change has indirectly inconvenienced the exchange's users.
BITCOIN ETF DECISION DELAYED AGAIN: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission pushed back a decision on approval of two bitcoin exchange-traded funds to October after repeatedly delaying the ruling previously, Bloomberg’s Vildana Hajric and Olivia Rinaldi reported Monday. The regulator postponed the decision on the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Trust and the VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust asking for additional comments on the crypto funds. The move comes after SEC chairman Jay Clayton said the concern over a lack of investor protections makes it unlikely the agency will approve a Bitcoin ETF in the near future.
OVERSTOCK CEO COMMENTS ON DEEP STATE: Overstock.com (OSTK) CEO Patrick Byrne released a Monday statement on two articles by Sara Carter. The CEO said, “Sara Carter has published two articles relating the following claims of mine: Starting in 2015 I assisted in what are now known as the ‘Clinton Investigation’ and the ‘Russian Investigation’. It was the third time in my life I helped the Men in Black: the first was when my friend Brian Williams was murdered, and the second was when I helped the M.I.B. shake up Wall Street a decade ago. Unfortunately, this third time turned out to be less about law enforcement and more about political espionage conducted against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In July 2018 I put the pieces together. I immediately came forward to a Congressman and a senior military officer, to the Department of Justice this April, and to a small set of journalists this summer. Ms. Carter was among them. Her two stories are accurate. Having confirmed Ms. Carter’s two articles, I have fulfilled those citizenship obligations of which my Rabbi reminded me. I will speak no more on the subject. Instead, having lived in places lacking Rule of Law and having witnessed the consequences of its absence, I plan on sitting back and watching the United States Department of Justice re-establish Rule of Law in our country.”
RIOT BLOCKCHAIN CFO DEPARTS: Riot Blockchain (RIOT) announced Thursday that its board is implementing a leadership change. Riot's CEO Jeffrey McGonegal is being named as CFO of the company on an interim basis until a permanent successor CFO is named. McGonegal replaces the departing Robby Chang, who joined Riot in February 2018 as its CFO. The company will be immediately conducting an search to identify and appoint a permanent successor CFO.
SOCIAL REALITY CHANGES NAME: Social Reality (SRAX) announced Tuesday will formally change its name from Social Reality to SRAX. The name change is consistent with the company's evolution from social media to consumer data management and technology. "Changing our name to SRAX is symbolic of our shift to a broader strategy to answer the needs of today's consumer," said SRAX's CEO and Founder Christopher Miglino. "While our roots were in social media, today we are focused on building the platform and tools to unlock the power of data. Through BIGtoken we put data back into the hands of consumers and through our verticals are delivering verified data to brands looking for a competitive edge.” Additionally, the company announced Wednesday that it signed a joint venture with the Yash Birla Group to launch BIGtoken in India. The partnership will bring BIGtoken's platform to India, which has a digital population of 627M.
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 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 roughly 13.9% this week to $10,128 in U.S. dollars, according to TradeBlock.
Bitcoin
+ (+0.00%)
Bitcoin
+ (+0.00%)
Barclays
+0.11 (+1.67%)
OSTK
+
Riot Platforms
+0.01 (+0.55%)
Srax
+ (+0.00%)
AMD
+0.73 (+2.46%)
Nvidia
+11.81 (+7.93%)
Ault Global Holdings
+0.08 (+4.65%)
Eastman Kodak
+0.07 (+3.40%)
Ideanomics
+ (+0.00%)
Pareteum
+0.05 (+1.74%)