PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($38,134): +16% / +31%
- ETH ($1,565): +20% / +1212%
- XRP ($0.42): -11% / +87%
- UNI ($18): -1% / +264%
- Crypto Market Cap ($1.15T): +18% / +51%
- BTC Dominance: 61%
STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- Tether ($28.6B): +8% / +37%
- USDC ($6.4B): +11% / +66%
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Total crypto market cap hits new all-time high of $1.15 trillion driven largely by the growth of Ethereum which hit a new all-time high of over $1,600 this week. Bitcoin dominance fell to 61%. Link.
- Coinbase plans to go public in the coming weeks and has chosen Nasdaq as the venue for its direct listing. Secondary Coinbase stock has been trading on Nasdaq Private Markets ahead of the IPO, and most recent trades imply a valuation of $50 billion for the company. Link.
- The price of cryptocurrency dogecoin (DOGE) soared over 35% after Snoop Dogg, Elon Musk, and Gene Simmons all tweeted a meme of a Shiba Inu, the dog breed that represents the DOGE coin. YTD DOGE was up over 1,000%. Link.
- Bitcoin volume at exchanges has been falling. Roughly $3.4 billion worth of bitcoin has left Coinbase since mid-December. Recent reports estimate that the number of BTC on Coinbase is now at 770,000, down from 865,000 in December. Speculation is that these were large over-the-counter transfers made my big institutional investors who are entering the space. Link. Link.
- PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said the company planned to double on cryptocurrencies, after a successful pilot testing crypto trading from its app. Volumes hit $242 million in transactions in January. The company also announced it would expand crypto trading to Venmo and select international markets in 2021. It also announced plans for customers to use cryptocurrencies to shop at any of its 26 million merchants starting in 2021. Link.
- Crypto exchanges had 344 million visitors in January, the highest point since the peak in January 2018 when sites drew in roughly 531 million visitors. Binance drew 29% of total visitors followed by Coinbase at 25%. Link.
- Visa announced a partnership with neobank First Boulevard to pilot Visa's crypto APIs that enable a bank to offer crypto custody and trading to their customers. Anchorage will provide the custody (Visa invested $40 million in the company last year). Link.
- DeFi platform Yearn.Finance said a hacker had exploited one of its pools and stolen $2.8 million. Yearn is a yield aggregator meaning users can deposit funds in pools which are then deployed to other DeFi protocols in an effort to generate yields. Link.
- Founder of New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) said that the firm may hold $25 billion worth of bitcoin under management by end of 2021. The firm currently owns over $6 billion in bitcoin. Link.
- Binance Coin (BNB), the in-house token of crypto exchange Binance, hit all time highs this week and passed Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in market cap. BCH is now the 10th largest coin by market cap. Link.
- LL Cool J and Paul Tudor Jones are investing in a new crypto-focused venture capital fund managed by North Island Ventures. The $72M fund has already invested in Dapper Labs, the company behind CryptoKitties and the Flow blockchain, and Axelar. Link.