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| Take a look at the hits from today's Inside Cryptocurrency briefing: - 🚀 A new all-time high in Bitcoin's price,
- 💰 MicroStrategy's plans to raise $600M through the sale of convertible senior notes to purchase more Bitcoin,
- 📈 Deutsche Börse's new crypto exchange for institutional investors, and more.
Enjoy your reading! Doğa
p/dogayurduneri | |
| 1 | | The U.S.-based business intelligence firm MicroStrategy has announced its plans to raise $600M to purchase additional Bitcoin (BTC), boosting its existing digital asset reserves. The new funds will be raised through the sale of convertible senior notes. More: - Convertible senior notes are a type of security that allows the purchaser to convert the note into a predefined amount of the issuer's shares.
- The notes will be offered only to qualified institutional buyers and will come due in 2030.
- The firm will also offer the initial purchasers the option to buy an additional $90M aggregate principal amount of the notes within 13 days beginning on the date the notes are first issued.
- MicroStrategy's announcement came shortly before Bitcoin reached its new all-time high above $69,000 on Tuesday.
- The firm is currently the largest corporate Bitcoin holder, with its reserve of 193,000 BTC worth around $13B at current prices.
Zoom Out: - MicroStrategy began its Bitcoin purchases in 2020 and boosted its reserves, especially last year.
- Earlier in February, the company's crypto advocate co-founder and executive chairman, Michael Saylor, stated that it does not plan to sell any of the firm's Bitcoin holdings and intends to continue to buy additional bitcoins.
- Saylor also recently said MicroStrategy will rebrand as a Bitcoin development company to reflect its strategy to accumulate more Bitcoin and promote the growth of the Bitcoin blockchain network.
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| 2 | | 
What the numbers say: The price of Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, recently hit a new all-time high above $69,000. The figure touched $69,170 on Tuesday, up from the $66,000 level a day earlier. Some trading venues pointed out that the popular cryptocurrency's price reached as much as $69,202 within the day. Bitcoin's previous price record came in November 2021, with a figure of just under $69,000. Shortly after touching its new all-time high, Bitcoin experienced a plummet in value and retreated to as low as the $62,000 level before seeing a slight recovery. Relevance: The new all-time high in Bitcoin's price was mainly triggered by the huge investor interest in recently launched spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S. The new investment products were approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and began trading in January. However, the funds managed to reach record daily trading volumes of billions of dollars only within two months. The enthusiasm around the upcoming Bitcoin halving event, expected to happen sometime in April or May, also became one of the main igniters of the price record of Bitcoin. The inflation-easing event will decrease miners' Bitcoin mining reward by half, reducing the number of new Bitcoins entering the network by 50%. Analysts believe the event will trigger a further price increase in Bitcoin in the long term since it would ultimately reduce the total amount of tokens in circulation. Brands that should care: The strong price increase in Bitcoin paved the way for a broader market rally, causing some other leading cryptocurrencies, such as Ether (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Solana (SOL), to also see massive value gains. However, the rally ultimately led to outages on crypto exchanges as investors sought to trade digital assets much more. Most recently, Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, experienced an issue that caused some users to see zero balances in their accounts, marking the second such outage in less than a week. Within the past week, rival crypto exchanges Binance, Kraken, and Bybit also suffered technical issues due to a sudden surge in traffic on their platforms. | | | |
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| 3 | | Deutsche Börse AG, a Germany-based stock and securities trading firm, has launched a spot crypto trading platform dubbed the Deutsche Börse Digital Exchange (DBDX) for institutional clients. The new platform will allow corporate customers to purchase and sell cryptocurrencies in compliance with the regulations while keeping their digital asset funds under custody. More: - The firm pointed out that DBDX will offer a fully regulated ecosystem for trading, transaction settlement, and custody of crypto assets.
- The trading venue will be operated by Deutsche Börse AG itself, while the settlement and custody services on the platform will be provided by one of its subsidiaries, Crypto Finance.
- A company spokesperson said trading on DBDX will start later this week.
- The firm's head of foreign exchange market and digital assets, Carl Koelzer, also stated that they aim to provide trusted market services for crypto assets, ensuring transparency, security, and regulatory compliance for institutional clients in Europe.
- The DBDX's launch came nearly four months after Deutsche Börse AG first announced its plans to launch a crypto exchange.
- Last month, Crypto Finance's German subsidiary obtained four licenses from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), the country's financial market regulator, as its parent company was preparing to launch its crypto trading platform.
Zoom Out: - Through the latest move, Deutsche Börse AG joined several other German traditional financial firms, including Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank, Commerzbank, and Stuttgart Stock Exchange, that launched or announced their plans to introduce crypto services.
- The company acquired Switzerland-based Crypto Finance in 2021 and also made strategic investments in several crypto-related firms like FundsDLT and 360X Music AG.
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| 4 | | The U.K.-based crypto payments services firm Baanx has raised $20M in funding in its Series A financing round. The firm said it will use the new funding to launch its services in the U.S. and Latin America later in 2024. More: - The fundraising round was co-led by Ledger, Tezos Foundation, Chiron, and British Business Bank.
- The new capital has brought the total funding Baanx has raised so far to $30M.
- Baanx's chief commercial officer, Simon Jones, said the firm has been developing a series of new products that allow users to have full control over their crypto assets while being able to spend them in real-world use cases over the past 12 months.
- The company offers a prepaid crypto debit card in partnership with crypto hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger.
- The firm also has a three-year partnership with the payment processing giant Mastercard in the U.K. and Europe.
Zoom Out: - Baanx currently has more than 150,000 users worldwide and a native BXX token.
- Besides, the company is authorized by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the U.K.'s financial market regulator.
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| 5 | | Crypto lender Nexo has obtained a provisional license in Dubai, the most populous emirate of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), from the region's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA). The license was granted to the firm's local entity, Nexo DTC. More: - Crypto firms can receive full approval in Dubai after completing three stages: the provisional permit, preparatory license, and operational license.
- Nexo is currently in the first stage, meaning it must first demonstrate its commitment to meeting the VARA's all regulatory requirements before launching its operations in the city.
- The firm pointed out that it plans to offer lending, borrowing, asset management, investment, and broker-dealer services to the region's crypto investors after receiving full approval from the VARA.
- Several other crypto firms, such as Crypto.com, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, Binance, and Nine Blocks Capital Management, also have licenses in Dubai.
Zoom Out: - Nexo, founded in 2018, offers crypto trading services, custody services, loans, interest-earning products, and debit cards.
- In 2023, the lender halted its operations in the U.S. after agreeing to pay a $45M fine to settle securities law violation charges by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
- At the time, the SEC accused the firm of failing to register its products with the country's regulators.
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| 6 | | The annual music and arts festival Coachella has partnered with the popular NFT marketplace OpenSea to launch three unique NFT collections for the 2024 edition of the event. The NFTs will serve as both digital mementos and access passes to unlock exclusive experiences at the festival. More: - The NFT collections will be minted on the Avalanche blockchain network.
- The digital collectibles in the collections will pair digital artworks related to Coachella with perks, including access to exclusive areas, limited edition merchandise, and VIP festival passes.
- The first 1,000-piece NFT collection has already been released, offering holders a VIP pass, access to the Oasis Lounge, and an Oasis Lounge Keepsake.
- The other two collections will be released on March 25 and in mid-April.
- Coachella's innovation lead, Sam Schoonover, defined the collaboration as a new chapter in the use of NFTs in the event to create user experiences both in real life and digitally.
- Schoonover added that Coachella will not be just an event to attend but an experience that can be owned and shaped based on the digital tokens in possession.
Zoom Out: - Coachella, which will take place between April 12 and 21 this year, is one of the largest music festivals in the world.
- The collaboration came amid a time when OpenSea experienced a strong decline in its key metrics.
- The platform closed February with a three-year low in NFT sales, as users purchased only 199,000 NFTs during the month.
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- PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the official liquidator overseeing the defunct crypto exchange FTX's bankruptcy proceedings, has announced that FTX creditors should file their electronic claims against the firm by May 15.
- Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has revealed that it would discontinue all its services involving Nigeria's official currency, the naira, following a heightened regulatory crackdown on the platform in the country.
- An appellate court in Montenegro has canceled Do Kwon's extradition to the U.S. once more, overturning a previous court ruling after the lawyers for the collapsed Terra ecosystem's co-founder appealed to the decision.
- Investment management company Grayscale Investments has launched a new fund that allows investors to stake cryptocurrencies to earn interest in U.S. dollars (USD) every quarter.
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 | Staff Writer | | Doga is a tech and science editor who has been writing news for nearly 10 years. She worked for leading tech platforms and mainstrem media channels as an editor and presenter throughout his career. Then, she carried her know-how to more than one platform. She is a part-time cat lover and binge-watcher, and also fond of science, space, and emerging tech. She always has a story to tell. She is a bit addict to the laughter and -unfortunately- the '90s culture. | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
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