Grayscale Investment announces five new digital asset trusts

Digital currency investment firm Grayscale has announced the launch of five new digital asset trusts. Grayscale launched a series of new digital asset trusts to the market, reportedly offering investors more diversification options. The U.S.-based cryptocurrency asset manager previously offered nine investment products, and the latest additions will bring the total number to 14. The new digital currency investment trusts are slightly different from other Grayscale products, as they include alternative digital assets such as Filecoin, Decentraland, Livepeer, and Basic Attention Token.

All five trusts are currently open for subscription daily to retail and institutional investors who meet the eligibility criteria. The company’s CEO, Michael Sonnenshein, cited increasing investor demand for diversification as the reason for launching the new trusts.

“Investor demand has never been higher, and we see new entrants every day in what has certainly become a real asset class,” he said.

Sonnenshein explained that investors were looking to invest in trusts other than the renowned Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). According to Bank of America, the trust debuted in 2013 and has become the most prominent public holder of bitcoins. This allows investors to take exposures to bitcoin without having to hold the actual asset. This way, they don’t have to worry about security or custody issues.

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Bank of Japan to launch CBDC experiments this year

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) will experiment with its central bank digital currency (CBDC) later this year, central bank governor Haruhiko Kuroda says

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the top bank needs to be adequately prepared for when it should issue its CBDC. He said this during a seminar yesterday.

According to the Reuters report, Kuroda said the BOJ needs to issue its digital currency. He said this is the reason they would experiment with their CBDC before the end of the year. He said, “To ensure the stability and efficiency of the overall payment and settlement systems, it is important to thoroughly prepare to respond appropriately to changes in circumstances.”

Kuroda disclosed that the Bank of Japan has no immediate plans to issue CBDC. However, central banks may not wait until needs arise to begin developing digital currencies. His statements are consistent with those he said during a webinar last July.

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Visa CEO Alfred Kelly: Cryptos could soon be mainstream

Visa CEO Alfred Kelly believes crypto-assets could be widely used in the next five years. He seemed to hold cryptocurrencies in high regard when he made the remarks that seemingly contradict his stance on the same issue in January.

The Visa executive spoke vaguely about cryptocurrencies earlier this year when the multinational financial services company announced its quarterly results. For more than three years, Kelly has not reported any upcoming or planned projects involving digital assets at the helm of the company.

Now he acknowledges that cryptocurrencies could turn out to be established or be a short-lived craze.

“The thing about our business that I really like is […] we don’t pick winners and losers. You know, as you and I sit here today talking, I don’t know to what extent cryptocurrencies are going to take off. Are we going to say five years from now that it was a fad and not a big deal? Or will they become extremely mainstream?”

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Morgan Stanley offers wealthy clients access to bitcoin funds

Investment bank Morgan Stanley will offer its wealthy clients access to Bitcoin funds. This makes it the first leading bank in the US to take such a step. Morgan Stanley currently manages over $4 trillion for its clients, and its move into bitcoin (BTC) could be huge for the crypto market.

Sources closely familiar with the matter told CNBC that Morgan Stanley told its financial advisors in an internal memo yesterday to grant access to three funds and allow clients bitcoin assets.

According to Morgan Stanley, the move to offer bitcoin funds results from increasing demand from its clients. The bitcoin rally over the past year has caught the attention of Wall Street. Several wealthy investors are demanding exposure to cryptocurrency.

There would be certain restrictions regarding bitcoin funds. Morgan Stanley would only allow wealthy clients to access the funds. To qualify, an investor must have at least $2 million in assets, while the minimum requirement for investment firms is at least $5 million. In both cases, accounts must be at least six months old.

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Bitcoin could risk a crash of at least $12,000

Bitcoin was already trading near the lower trendline of the structure on Tuesday, expecting a break below it to target lower levels. However, Prince remained convinced of a rebound move towards $67,000, after which the price would fall towards the same support trendline to actually see a bearish breakdown this time.

Rising wedges warn of possible bearish reversals. Typically, a break below the lower trendline of the pattern takes the price down by as much as the maximum height of the wedge.

Therefore, depending on the height from which it breaks down, Bitcoin could risk a crash of at least $12,000.

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MicroStrategy bought 262 BTC worth about $15 million

MicroStrategy bought 262 BTC worth about $15 million. The digital asset held by the analytics software provider reached 91,326 BTC.

The average purchase price was $57,146 per coin, including fees and other expenses.

The company’s total investment in digital gold was more than $2.2 billion. At the time of writing, the value of assets exceeded $5.1 billion (according to CoinGecko).

In August 2020, MicroStrategy was the first public company to convert a portion of its $250 million equity into a leading cryptocurrency.

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Grayscale poised to launch first U.S. Bitcoin ETF

Digital asset management firm Grayscale could be on the cusp of launching a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), according to new job postings.

If the latest job postings from Grayscale, a leading cryptocurrency investment firm with $40 billion in assets under management, are anything to go by, the firm could be on the verge of filing for an exchange-traded fund in the United States.

The company posted the link to its latest job openings on Twitter on Wednesday. According to the posting, there are nine openings for ETF professionals, including an Authorized ETF Relationship Manager, whose job is to “develop and maintain new and existing relationships with authorized participants for Grayscale’s exchange-traded fund (ETF) products and develop business expansion plans.”

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LedgerPrime invests $50 million in bitcoin (BTC)

LedgerPrime has sold $49.5 million worth of securities for its fund to invest in Bitcoin and Ethereum, according to the SEC.

LedgerPrime has sold $49.5 million worth of securities to invest in digital assets, according to a filing with the SEC. The firm’s president and chief investment officer, Shiliang Tang, revealed that nine clients made the purchase.

Ayesha Kiani, VP of Business Development, recently spoke at SXSW 2021, and the topic of discussion was the development of the crypto derivatives market. She elaborated on various aspects of mainstream crypto adoption. She also stressed the importance of Defi firms working together to make adoption faster and more efficient:

“We are all striving for the same goal. Currently, Defi is about 1% of what CeFi (centralized finance) is. By 2022, Defi is expected to have about 10 million users. We’re here to help… at the end of the day, we all have the same goal of cryptocurrency being widely used.”

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Peter Schiff’s son goes “all in” on bitcoin

Peter Schiff, Bitcoin hater and gold bug, seem to be very disappointed in his son for going all-in on Bitcoin, as he wrote on Twitter. He has even joked about disinheriting him to prevent him from putting the inheritance into Bitcoin.

Peter Schiff said that before BTC recently fell below $50,000, his son Spencer went all-in, even selling his silver stocks.

Schiff thinks his son is brainwashed and complains that most young investors are even more susceptible to bitcoin propaganda, some of which takes place on Crypto Twitter.

Schiff went on to say that his son will not sell any of his Bitcoin back.

“He’s coughing up to infinity or bankruptcy.”

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Facebook experiments with voice assistants

Facebook is trying to establish its own voice assistant. Initially, on the VR glasses of the subsidiary Oculus, users can trigger the software’s functions with the wake-up word “Hey Facebook,” as the online network announced on Friday night.

Facebook’s video communication device Portal also now suggests “Hey Facebook” as an alternative to the previous “Hey Portal” trigger. The capabilities of the assistance software are limited to a few tasks, to begin with. For example, you can start a game by voice, see who your friends are online, or take a screenshot.

The software will initially be available on the new Oculus Quest 2 glasses and later on for the first Quest generation. Facebook stopped selling its VR goggles after plans to merge Oculus accounts with Facebook profiles triggered an investigation in Germany.

Virtual reality involves users immersing themselves in digital worlds with special glasses. Currently, Facebook, in particular, is driving development in the consumer market with Oculus. Despite great expectations and investments, VR has so far remained a niche business.

In voice assistants, Alexa from Amazon and Google Assistant is the most widespread across technology from various providers, while Apple offers its own Siri software on its devices.

Ripple could soon force the current status of XRP

In a new video, attorney Jeremy Hogan has revealed a “new hope” for the XRP community. It’s “a super important litigation strategy that Ripple is going to implement, and I call it the new hope.” (Disclaimer: Neither Jeremy Hogan nor Crypto News Flash
are providing financial or legal advice).

The SEC has jurisdiction over trading, i.e., buying and selling, but not holding securities in the United States. Therefore, security comes under the SEC’s jurisdiction only if it was a security at the sale time. Each sale must be considered individually, as circumstances may change.

Generally, at the time of the sale, Ripple must have advertised the expectation that XRP would increase in value due to its activities. The key, then, is whether and, if so, when Ripple was the primary driver of XRP’s price at a given point in time.

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Russian plant CBDC-Tests ab 2022

The Russian central bank is now entering the race for CBDCs. It wants to start the first field tests as early as 2022.

Russia’s national central bank is apparently planning CBDC tests starting in 2022, according to a YouTube interview with the central bank’s deputy governor Alexey Zabotkin. Currently, the final details of the “Zifra ruble” are still being discussed. However, the prototype should be ready by the end of the year. However, it will not be possible to carry out any transactions until the first field tests began in 2022.

Zabotkin also addressed the impact of a national CBDC. He believes that the digital ruble would enrich the banking industry in Russia, as financial institutions could integrate the CBDC into the services they currently offer and create new financial products based on smart contracts. The effects that the “Zifra ruble” would have on domestic monetary policy would all be “controllable” in the process. Rumors of a digital central bank currency had circulated in Russia since October of last year when Bank Rossii Governor Elvira Nabiullina suggested that a national CBDC project be launched in late 2021. She said at the time that it should represent a “third form of money”.

Russia is now trying to catch up with China with the Zifra ruble. The Middle Kingdom has long been considered the ultimate in digital central bank currencies. The Southeast Asian country has been testing the digital yuan on the population for quite some time. Recently, one could observe how digital yuan could be exchanged for cash at an ATM in a government video. At the same time, there is radio silence in Europe.

Apple’s electric car

After negotiations with Hyundai, Kia or Nissan are said to have failed. Apple is now considering hiring Foxconn or Magna, according to a report.

Apple has apparently still not found a manufacturer for its first electric car. Talks with vehicle manufacturers who were supposed to take over production for the iPhone manufacturer have not been successful – at least according to the car companies concerned in partially veiled statements.

In addition to Hyundai and its subsidiary Kia, Apple has bitten the bullet with Nissan. According to a report, Apple now wants to rely on a different model – the use of genuine contract manufacturers, as the company has done for many years with the iPhone, iPad, Mac and others. There had been the corresponding speculation for some time. As the financial news agency Bloomberg now writes and the largest iPhone manufacturer Foxconn from Taiwan, the Austrian Magna Group is also on Apple’s list.

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Seetee invests 50 million euros in BTC

The Norwegian Aker Group is diversified. In addition to its oil and renewable energy business, it is also active in six other areas. Now another one is being added, which is even relatively obvious.

Because Aker ASA announced yesterday that it had founded the subsidiary Seetee. Seetee’s initial focus will be on bitcoin mining, but it also aims to support and expand the entire bitcoin ecosystem. The company calls on its official website to get in touch if you have fresh and big ideas you want to realize.

At the same time, they also announced a partnership with Blockstream and thus indirectly made clear that they see the future in the further development of sidechains and the Lightning Network.

At the start, the company’s assets amounted to 500 million Norwegian kroner, which is equivalent to about 50 million euros, which is invested entirely in Bitcoin and, according to its own statements, wants to keep simple. Seetee is thus becoming a European Bitcoin whale along the lines of MicroStrategy.

Although there has been increased discussion in recent weeks about whether Ethereum might also not see an influx of institutional investors, so far, it looks like other cryptocurrencies are rather secondary in the eyes of this target group. This means that finally, a European company is also betting on BTC after only a comparatively small attempt was launched in Germany by SynBiotic SE so far.

Tesla share: After slide new price explosion – short sellers earned billions

The Tesla share had recently slumped – to the delight of short-sellers. Now the stock is taking off again. The reason for the upward price is probably the same as that which is driving the bitcoin price.

Over the past four weeks, Tesla’s share price has fallen from just under $850 to as low as $550. But that’s after a near-unprecedented 2020 rally that had made Tesla the most valuable automaker and CEO Elon Musk the richest person in the world. The sharp drop saw the electric carmaker lose around $277 billion in market capitalization. Currently, however, things are looking up again.

Tesla share: Strong gain after slump

On Monday, the Tesla share had lost another 6.5 percent, but on Tuesday, the stock was marked by a – possibly only temporary – recovery. In the early afternoon of Tuesday, New York, the stock posted a strong gain of up to 18 percent on the Nasdaq tech exchange. The stimulus for this renewed price explosion could be the same as currently driving the bitcoin price up the 1.9 trillion dollar aid package passed in the US.

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Goldman Sachs values bitcoin in light of growing customer interest

The investment bank’s foray into the crypto sector is gradually becoming a question of “when” rather than “if.” This is according to remarks made by the multinational bank’s president, John Waldron. Waldron confirmed rising client interest toward bitcoin in a virtual event yesterday, claiming the bank is still exploring the crypto asset.

“Customer demand is increasing. We are regulated on what we can do. We continue to evaluate it and engage in it,” he said during the Wolfe Virtual FinTech Forum.

The development is based on the bank’s customer survey on digital assets, which showed that 40% of high-net-worth survey respondents have access to digital assets. 54% of respondents also predicted that the BTC price could fluctuate between $40,000 and $100,000.

In his opinion, the pandemic is responsible for the interest in the flagship cryptocurrency. Many individual traders entered the bitcoin market in 2020 due to the imposed pandemic-related restrictions on movement.

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Israeli pension fund invests $100 million in bitcoin

One of Israel’s leading pension funds had invested around $100 million in Bitcoin through the GBTC route in the second half of 2020. Altshuler Shaham made this move when the leading cryptocurrency was trading around the $21,000 mark.

Bitcoin’s current bull cycle began last year. The leading cryptocurrency surpassed its all-time high of 2017 and set new highs in the coming months. The currency ended trading last year near the $30,000 mark.

According to local press reports, Altshuler Shaham remains one of Israel’s most prominent investment houses, with more than $50 billion in assets under management. The $100 million investment should have increased by over 100%, as bitcoin is currently trading at $55,000 at press time.

The news came when institutional investors are looking for ways to gain exposure to bitcoin and a host of other cryptocurrencies. Investors are either buying cryptocurrencies directly or accessing them through funds like Grayscale’s GBTC.

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“Atari Casino”: gaming giant Atari plans new crypto project with Decentral Games

Atari is launching the new “Atari Casino,” powered by Decentral Games. The platform is set to launch in May and will allow users to play online casino games with cryptocurrencies.

The first “community-owned” Metaverse casino platform – Decentral Games and Atari. It is now set to launch in May.

Decentral Games offers its users a 3D casino gaming experience via the Ethereum-based virtual reality platform Decentraland (go to the Ethereum buy guide). The partnership with Atari now gives it a dimension all its own.

It will be a 20-parcel casino estate located in the Vegas City casino district on Decentraland.

According to Decentral Games, holders of its native DG token and the Decentral gaming community will benefit immensely from the upcoming Atari casino. About 88% of the profits will be allocated to its DG DAO Treasury.

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Blackrock predicts great future for Bitcoin

BlackRock signals growing interested in cryptocurrencies. It was announced that bitcoin derivatives on commodity exchanges would become eligible investments for BlackRock Funds V and the Blackrock Global Allocation Fund.

The move is in line with increasingly positive bitcoin rhetoric coming from BlackRock. CEO Larry Fink talked about the possibility of Bitcoin going global.

He added that a digital currency makes the U.S. dollar less relevant.

According to Rieder, deteriorating macroeconomic conditions with negative interest rates, extreme monetary policy, and skyrocketing government debt have led institutions to look at cryptocurrencies for diversification.

The past few weeks have seen a flood of high-profile institutional investors, including Tesla and BNY Mellon. Not to mention the likes of JPMorgan have indicated interest.

This momentum from institutional buyers will only encourage more companies to do the same and buy Bitcoin in uncertain times.

First BITCOIN ETF approved in Canada

 

Canada took a bold step this week. The OSC approved the “Purpose Bitcoin ETF.” That replicates the price development of Bitcoin (BTC) and does not represent a closed investment fund, which so far provided the only products on the Canadian market.

Many market observers believe it is more than likely that the U.S. could soon follow suit. Similarly, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) is not known for cultivating a liberal approach to the issue. In recent years, several applications from various companies have failed.

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