Bitcoin Showing Strength; Global Energy Shortages Persist: Markets Wrap

Bitcoin is up nearly 12%, $AXS up 54%, Global energy shortages spread to the UK and the White House discusses stablecoin regulation

article-image

Blockworks exclusive art by Axel Rangel

share

key takeaways

  • Bitcoin surges on positive remarks from Jerome Powell; $47 million of short positions liquidated
  • Not your key, not your coins: hackers exploit Coinbase MFA flaw to steal from 6,000 customers

Digital assets were up big across the board Friday with equities following suit.

The UK joins China in a power crisis, setting the stage for European gas prices to hit all-time highs.

DeFi/NFTs/Gaming

  • Borrowing and lending protocol, Compound, experienced a bug in a recent update which sent users nearly $90 million in crypto by error. Leaders in the Compound community took to Twitter to beg for the money back, even threatening reporting wallet addresses to the IRS.
  • The Biden administration is considering ways it can impose bank-like regulations on stablecoins to avoid any systemic risk they may cause if left unregulated.
  • Axie Infinity’s governance token, $AXS, surges to an all time high as airdrops conclude and staking is announced. $AXS broke $111 for the first time as of this writing.

TradFi

  • Memos from within the White House seriously exploring the possibility of ‘minting the coin’ to avoid breaching the debt ceiling.
  • OPEC members say the world needs more investment in oil and gas and that the current energy crises should be a ‘wake-up-call’ for the world.
  • The Atlanta Fed has revised its Q3 real US GDP estimate to 2.3%, down from 6.0% in the beginning of August.

Insight

“Right now if I take a step back and put on my ‘I’m a 2-year-old’ hat, the communists (China) are trying to make housing more affordable and they are trying to let capital markets work and let somebody (Evergrande) take a loss to learn a lesson. And the capitalists (America) are doing the exact opposite. We are trying to make housing as expensive as we can and build as much political fragmentation in our society over it as possible.”

-Luke Gromen in regards to the Evergrande situation on Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast Episode:045

Bitcoin

Supply held by long-term-holders, or supply held for longer than 155 days, is at an all-time high as Bitcoin surges

Source: Glassnode

Other Top Crypto Movers

  • $DYDX is one of the biggest losers today, down 8.5% to $21.30 after a spectacular run earlier this week
  • $LUNA is also trailing the market today, last trading near unchanged at $37.95 despite the market wide run up
  • $AXS is by far the biggest winner today, up 54% to $111. Check out the staking dashboard and the community treasury

Currencies

  • The DXY index dropped -0.19%, according to MarketWatch.

Commodities

  • The November gas price at the Dutch TTF hub, a European benchmark, hit an all time high of 100 Euros per megawatt hour, according to Reuters.

In other news…

Brian Armstrong announced that he has met with more than 30 crypto firms, 25 members of congress and/or staff, four major law firms, and three trade groups about regulatory proposals for the industry.

GM plans to launch at least 20 new electric vehicles in North America by 2028. Many subject matter experts believe this could put severe supply pressure on the precious metals used in EVs.

El Salvador has mined their first Bitcoin blocks using geothermal heat from volcanos to power miners.

That’s all for this week, folks. See you all back here on Monday!


Are you a UK or EU reader that can’t get enough investor-focused content on digital assets?Join us in London on November 15th and 16th for the Digital Asset Summit (DAS) London. Use code ARTICLE for £75 off your ticket. Buy it now.


Tags

Upcoming Events

Salt Lake City, UT

MON - TUES, OCT. 7 - 8, 2024

Blockworks and Bankless in collaboration with buidlbox are excited to announce the second installment of the Permissionless Hackathon – taking place October 7-8 in Salt Lake City, Utah. We’ve partnered with buidlbox to bring together the brightest minds in crypto for […]

Salt Lake City, UT

WED - FRI, OCTOBER 9 - 11, 2024

Permissionless is a conference for founders, application developers, and users. Come meet the next generation of people building and using crypto.

recent research

Research Report Templates (1).png

Research

Solana Mobile is a highly ambitious foray into the mobile consumer hardware market, seeking to open up a crypto-native distribution channel for mobile-first applications. The market for Solana Mobile devices has demonstrated a phenomenon whereby external market actors (e.g. Solana-native projects) continuously underwrite subsidies to Mobile consumers. The value of these subsidies, coming in the form of airdrops, trial programs, and exclusive NFT mints, have consistently covered the cost of the phone and generated positive returns for consumers. Given this trend in subsidies, the unit economics in the market for Mobile devices, and the initial growth rate and trajectory of sales, it should be expected that Solana mobile can clear 1M to 10M units over the coming years. As more devices circulate amongst users, Solana Mobile presents a promising venue for the emergence of killer-applications uniquely enabled by this mobile-first, crypto-native distribution channel.

article-image

Plus, breaking down Donald Trump’s shifting crypto stance

article-image

Markets are holding relatively steady despite the supply shock

article-image

Analysts are looking ahead to August, a historically volatile month made more interesting this year by the US presidential election

article-image

Plus, a look into Lighting Labs’ newest feature

article-image

Crypto’s Wild West era is over — it’s time to embrace regulation to secure the future of digital assets

article-image

Plus, Solana has now surpassed Ethereum in trailing 30-day decentralized exchange volume