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.
LIBRA APPOINTS CEO: The Libra Association, a Facebook (FB)-led cryptocurrency effort, announced Wednesday the appointment of Stuart Levey as its first chief executive office. Levey is currently serving as chief legal officer of HSBC (HSBC). Prior to joining HSBC, he served as the first Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence during the Bush and Obama Administrations. Levey will serve as the overall strategic leader for the project, bringing his expertise to combine technology innovation with a robust compliance and regulatory framework. Mr. Levey will step down from his role at HSBC and join the Libra Association later this summer.
BITCOIN TOPS $10K: Bitcoin briefly rallied above $10,000 on Friday in Asia trading ahead of the cryptocurrency’s halving, which some view as a catalyst for longer-term price gains, Bloomberg’s Joaana Ossinger and Eric Lam reported. The price passed $10,000 for the first time since February 24 and the move came before the halving, when the rewards miners get for processing transaction reduce by half, a feature of the digital currency developed to control inflation. “Bitcoin trades sentiment-driven at its peaks and valleys, and the post-halving hangover is part of the normal price ebbs and flows on top of Bitcoin’s fundamental value,” said Jehan Chu, managing partner with blockchain investment and advisory firm Kenetic Capital.
RIOT PRODUCES 108 BITCOINS: Riot Blockchain (RIOT) announced Tuesday its April production update. During April, the company produced 108 newly mined bitcoins with its new Bitmain S17s being fully deployed for the entire month of April 2020. Riot's BTC inventory increased by 13% since March 31, 2020 to 929 BTC as of April 30, 2020. The company is currently operating approximately 4,000 S17s with an aggregate hashing power capacity of 248 Petahash per second between the Riot Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and the Coinmint Massena, New York locations. Additionally on Thursday, the company announced the purchase of an additional 1,040 next generation Bitmain S19 Antminers for $1.9M from BitmainTech. On April 30, Riot announced its purchase of 1,000 S19 Pro miners. Riot anticipates that the total 2,040 new S19 miners will be received and deployed in the third quarter of 2020. Once the S19s are fully deployed, Riot estimates its aggregate operating hash rate will increase over 80% to approximately 457 petahash per second and utilize approximately 16.5 megawatts of energy.
PAUL TUDOR JONES BUYS BITCOIN: Macro investor Paul Tudor Jones has purchased bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, which he sees approaching from central bank money-printing, Bloomberg’s Eric Schatzker reported Thursday. “The best profit-maximizing strategy is to own the fastest horse,” said Jones, the founder and CEO of Tudor Investment Corp. “If I am forced to forecast, my bet is it will be Bitcoin.” Jones, who said his Tudor BVI fund may hold as much as a low-single digit percentage of assets in bitcoin futures, estimates $3.9T of money has been printed since February. “It has happened globally with such speed that even a market veteran like myself was left speechless,” Jones, 65, wrote. “We are witnessing the Great Monetary Inflation -- an unprecedented expansion of every form of money unlike anything the developed world has ever seen.”
CRYPTO INVESTOR SUES NYC TEEN: Cryptocurrency investor Michael Terpin is suing 18-year-old Ellis Pinsky, alleging the teen was the mastermind of a cybercrime scheme that defrauded him out of $23.8M in digital currencies, Reuter’s Jonathan Stempel reported Thursday. Terpin, who is seeking $71.4M in damages, claims Pinsky and his ”gang of digital bandits” stole from victims after securing control of their smartphones through “SIM swaps”. The investor accuses the group of violating federal laws against racketeering and computer fraud.
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 (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 12.3% this week to $9,888 in U.S. dollars, according to TradeBlock.
Bitcoin
+ (+0.00%)
Bitcoin
+ (+0.00%)
Ticker changed to META
+0.5 (+0.24%)
HSBC
+0.39 (+1.55%)
Riot Platforms
+0.125 (+8.17%)
AMD
+0.11 (+0.21%)
Nvidia
+2.85 (+0.93%)
OSTK
+
Ault Global Holdings
+ (+0.00%)
Eastman Kodak
+0.04 (+1.91%)
Ideanomics
+0.0091 (+1.78%)
Pareteum
+0.0015 (+0.25%)
Srax
+ (+0.00%)