Good Morning!
Bitcoin has shown resilience this week with dips below the $60,000 mark lasting no more than an hour, much to the dismay of shorts and bears.
It was a fairly calm weekend for the cryptocurrency with BTC maintaining the bullish trajectory it has been set on whilst also sealing its highest weekly closer ever at about $61,500, indicating more potential for further upside.
At the time of writing Bitcoin is currently trading hands at $61,660.
Today could see the launch of the first-ever Bitcoin ETF with the blessing from the US regulators sealed last week. BTC has its sights set on new ATH’s with only just $3,000 in its way. Despite this approval, analysts expect BTC price action to be “more volatile” than what we have seen in the past, particularly in 2013 and 2017.
There is definitely a lot of excitement about the potential price of BTC this year and just how high it could go however some are already talking about the potential impending bear market.
No one is too naive to think that stocks only go up in a straight line, cryptocurrency and bitcoin for that matter is certainly no expectation. With each halving cycle, we should expect to see a price peak followed by a significant reduction in price, akin to what happened in 2014 and 2018.
Crypto Twitter (CT) has been blowing up as expected with many taking sides in both the bull and bear camps. The bulls are arguing BTC has more left to give. PlanB, who created the stock-to-flow based BTC price forecasting models believes that the bull run has upwards of 6 months left to run.
I am team bull…..for now.
Let’s get started.
Markets
As of 18th October 2021
(source: coinmarketcap)
Headline roundup
SEC approves Bitcoin futures ETF, opening crypto to wider investor base (CD)
What is a Bitcoin ETF? (CD)
CTFC fines Tether stablecoin $41m for misrepresentation (LI)
Reg uncertainty is a recurring theme at London’s Token2049 (CD)
Goldman Sachs demands level playing field for digital currency (LI)
Square considering building a bitcoin mining system (CD)
Grayscale said close to filing to convert Bitcoin fund into Spot ETF (CD)
Bank of England on crpyto risks: sit up and take notice (LI)
Bitcoin futures ETF could send token soaring to $85,000 (MI)
Hyperledger gets a new leader (LI)
What Jamie Dimon doesn’t understand about Bitcoin (CD)
Microstrategy’s bet doubles to $6bn (BBG)
Nomura, Daiwa invest in SBI’s Osaka digital exchange for security tokens (LI)
Consensys in funding talks at a $3bn valuation (Yahoo)
CBDC
Private-sector digital pound foundation launches to explore CBDC and stablecoins (LI)
ECB slams Bitcoin talks about CBDC in 5-year timeframe (LI)
Japan will prioritise simplicity in CBDC design, says central bank exec (CT)
Ripple helping to develop digital pound CBDC in the UK (BIC)
Four steps banks need to take to prepare for crypto, CBDC disruption (CN)
CBDC a ‘high possibility in South Korea (AMBC)
VC
Tribe Capital to launch $75m crypto fund (CD)
Animoca backs $1.5m funding for NFT pawnshop for play to earn games (LI)
Celo hopes to invest $340m stablecoin asset backing in rainforests (LI)
NEAR’s Aurora raises $12m to expand Eth layer 2 network (CD)
Meme of the week
About Me
My name is Michael Burke, and I started working in the blockchain space about 4 years ago, firstly with Deloitte, now with R3, where I help our customers build enterprise solutions utilising the Corda platform. My interest in blockchain and cryptocurrency stems from the sheer potential of the technology to completely transform industries and value chains for the better.