Category: Crypto Mining

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Coinbase Partners with BlackRock to Offer Cryptocurrencies to Institutions

Coinbase, one of the world’s largest and most popular digital currency exchanges, is partnering with investment giant BlackRock to offer its clients the opportunity to trade digital assets.

Coinbase and BlackRock team up

Joseph Chalom, Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships at BlackRock, explained in a recent interview:

Our institutional clients are increasingly interested in gaining exposure to digital asset markets and are focused on how to efficiently manage the operational lifecycle of these assets. This connectivity will allow clients to manage their bitcoin exposures directly within their existing portfolio management and trading workflows for a portfolio-wide view of risk across all asset classes.

It’s interesting to see BlackRock make this change. Larry Fink, the company’s president, said about five years ago that bitcoin was the “money laundering index.” He didn’t trust cryptocurrencies, nor did he have any desire, it seems, to get involved with them.

However, it looks like things have changed not exactly for Fink, but also for the company’s clientele. They are starting to realize the true prowess of digital assets and want to get involved. They are eager to take advantage of digital currency offerings and expand their portfolios beyond the standard investment tools they have been exposed to.

For this reason, it appears that BlackRock feels they have no choice but to continue offering digital currencies to customers, regardless of how Fink feels. Executives know there is business to be lost if they don’t change with the times, and offering cryptocurrencies is likely to please everyone sitting at the BlackRock table.

Owen Lau, analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., gave his thoughts on the new partnership, commenting:

After this validation, Coinbase will be able to partner with more traditional financial industries. This shows that even with BlackRock’s size, they will be partnering with a native cryptocurrency company rather than developing their own features.

The move comes at a pretty interesting time, given how poorly the crypto space has been doing lately. Bitcoin, for example, is down over 60% from its all-time high of over $68,000 per unit last November. At the moment, the asset is struggling to maintain a position in the $20K range, with the entire crypto space losing around $2 trillion in overall valuation.

A lot of controversy surrounding the exchange

The fact that the space is in such a weak state and yet so many institutions still want to take advantage of it is proof that digital currencies are becoming much more mainstream and legitimate in people’s eyes, even as prices fall.

Coinbase has been at the center of a lot of controversy lately. The company is under SEC investigation and a former employee has been accused of insider trading.

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Trading App Giant Robinhood Launches Support for Ethereum Rival Cardano (ADA) Ahead of Network Updates

Retail giant Robinhood is kicking off the new month by adding a top 10 crypto asset to its trading list.

In a new announcement via Twitter, the company says that Cardano Scalable Decentralized Blockchain (ADA), driven by customer demand, is now available on the Robinhood platform.

Cardano is a competitor to Ethereum (ETH), and this month both projects will institute major network upgrades.

Earlier this week, Cardano creator Bob Hoskinson provided an update on the long-awaited Vasil hard fork, saying that developers are making steady progress towards the event that should take place in the coming weeks.

“Things are moving very fast. The community is still doing extensive testing and so are we. There is a lot of integration work going on behind the scenes, so all of this infrastructure is looking good.

Sometime in September is what it looks like, unless something is discovered or we have a substantial slowdown somewhere.”

The Ethereum Foundation also announced last week an updated timeline for the Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Consensus Engine project merger, starting with the Bellatrix update on September 6, followed by the transition formal Sometime between September 10 and 20.

Cardano experienced a week of price fluctuation, falling 1.74% to trade at $0.44 at the time of writing.

Ethereum is also in the red at 1.31% and is currently changing hands at $1,536.

While Robinhood continues to add new digital assets to its trading platform, the company has suffered from the negative effects of the long cryptocurrency bear market and in early August laid off 23% of its workforce.

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South Korea’s second largest city, Busan, partners with FTX for a local exchange

The city of Busan, the second largest city in South Korea, commonly known as the ‘Blockchain’ city of South Korea, has partnered with major cryptocurrency exchange FTX to build a local exchange. Furthermore, the association also aims to promote the development of blockchain in the city.

Pursuant to the agreement according to a statement issued by the Busan Metropolitan City on Aug. 30, FTX will assist in the creation of a local cryptocurrency exchange duped by the Busan Digital Asset Exchange. The Bahamian cryptocurrency exchange led by Sam Bankman-Fried will also support the city of Busan in promoting the growth of the local blockchain industry.

Busan City Cryptocurrency Exchange

The city of Busan will leverage FTX’s technology and infrastructure to build its own cryptocurrency exchange and promote blockchain-specific education at local universities and projects within the city’s ‘Special Blockchain Free Zone’ established in 2019.

FTX, through its Investment Division CEO Amy Woo, said that it will establish a Korean branch of FTX in the city of Busan within the next 12 months to help make Busan a digital financial hub in Asia.

In addition to signing an agreement with FTX, Busan also partnered with Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange by turnover, on August 1. Binance has signed a memorandum of understanding to provide the city with infrastructure and technology support for its blockchain development effort.

Both FTX and Binance are expected to establish a presence in South Korea in the next 12 months.

Since Busan was designated as the Blockchain City of South Korea in 2019, several projects have already been launched. These projects include a proprietary blockchain-based identification system, a blockchain-powered driver’s license platform, and cryptocurrency support for various services.

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Goldman Sachs urges investors to buy commodities now; expect stocks to suffer as inflation remains high

Global investment bank Goldman Sachs has urged investors to buy commodities now and worry about a recession later. The company’s analysts see commodities as “the best asset class to own later in the cycle, where demand remains above supply.” Meanwhile, “stocks may take a hit as inflation remains high and the Fed is more likely to surprise on the aggressive side,” Goldman noted.

Goldman Sachs Recommendation: Buy Commodities Now

Global investment bank Goldman Sachs has recommended that investors buy commodities. In a note titled “Buy Commodities Now, Worry About Recession Later,” published on Monday, Goldman wrote: “Our economists view the risk of a recession outside of Europe in the next 12 months as relatively low.” Company analysts including Sabine Schels, Jeffrey Currie and Damien Courvalin explained:

With oil a commodity of last resort in an era of severe energy shortages, we believe the downturn in the entire oil complex offers an attractive entry point for long-term investment.

In the US, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said last week: “We are taking strong and swift action to moderate demand to better align with supply and keep inflation expectations anchored. We will continue this way until we are sure the job is done.”

Furthermore, European Central Bank (ECB) board member Isabel Schnabel noted on Saturday that central banks around the world are at risk of losing public confidence and must now act forcefully to combat inflation, including if you drag your savings into a recession.

“From a cross-asset perspective, equities may suffer as inflation remains elevated and the Fed is more likely to surprise on the aggressive side,” Goldman analysts further noted, explaining:

Commodities, on the other hand, are the best asset class to own later in the cycle, where demand remains above supply.

The final phase of the cycle normally implies an increase in inflationary pressures and an economy that exceeds the maximum rate of economic growth.

Goldman Sachs also warned: “We recognize that the macroeconomic environment remains challenging and the US dollar could rise further in the near term.”

Currie, who heads commodity research at Goldman Sachs, believes recessions are a natural part of a prolonged commodity supercycle. He told Reuters in November last year: “We expect a structural bull market in commodities, very similar to what we saw in the 2000s or 1970s.”

The analyst told CNBC in June that we are at the start of a commodity supercycle. “This is the first round of a commodity super cycle, it’s not just oil and gas, it’s metals, it’s mining, it’s agriculture, because the sector has suffered from over a decade of underinvestment,” he said.

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The most profitable buy signal in Bitcoin has just been activated

The latest trend in Bitcoin’s “hash tape” indicator has just formed a pattern that has historically been a buy signal for the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin hash tape buy signal deactivates when miner capitulation comes to an end

As one analyst explained on Twitter, the capitulation phase of BTC miners appears to have ended today after 71 days.

Before trying to understand what the “hash tape” indicator does, it’s best to first take a look at the “hash rate” metric.

Hashrate is a measure of the total amount of computing power connected to the Bitcoin blockchain by miners. During bear markets, the income of some miners drops so much that running their trades becomes unprofitable for them. At such times, your only option is to take your machines offline, which records a downward trend in hashrate.

In previous bear markets, troughs often occurred during these periods of miner capitulations, where large numbers of miners quickly go offline due to low income.

One indicator to identify these periods of miner capitulation is hash tapes. Conceived by the aforementioned analyst Charles Edwards, this metric uses two different moving averages of the hashrate, the 30-day MA and the 60-day MA, to observe changes in miner behavior.

Here is a chart that shows the trend of Bitcoin hash tapes in recent years:

The 30-day SMA hashrate appears to have surpassed the 60-day SMA version | Source: Charles Edwards on Twitter

As you can see in the chart above, the capitulation periods of Bitcoin miners are marked with the hash ribbon indicator.

Whenever the 30-day MA version of the hashrate drops below the 60-day MA line, miners are assumed to be starting a capitulation phase.

A break above the 60-day MA by the 30-day MA, on the other hand, implies an end to the capitulation of these chain validators.

When this type of capitulation occurs that ends in the crossing of hash tapes, a buy signal is triggered for the cryptocurrency.

But even among these buy signals, there are some that are especially profitable. These signals are formed after miner capitulations that occur more than 2 years after any halving event.

Today, hash tapes once again painted the historic pattern of the buy signal as the miner’s latest capitulation series came to an end after 71 days. It has also been over 2 years since the last halving, which following the previous trend would suggest that this is one of those rare “most profitable” buy signals for Bitcoin.

BTC price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin price hovers around $21,300, down 13% from last week.