Bitcoin ($BTC) rises above $24K for the first time in 8 weeks

by James · August 8, 2022

Bitcoin ($BTC) rises above K for the first time in 8 weeks

On Monday (August 8), Bitcoin traded above the $24,000 level for the first time on June 13.

According to TradingView data, on Binance, the $BTC price broke above the $24,000 level at 8:32 UTC on Aug 8th and currently (ie as of 9:34 UTC Aug 8th) $BTC is trading around $24.157, up 5.02% last 24h period.

Earlier today, Matt Corallo, an open source engineer at Spiral, which is “an independent, bitcoin-focused entity within the blockchain ecosystem of companies,” criticized Bitcoin maximalists who are more focused on “attacking other projects” than explaining why Bitcoin is “great and unique”.

Corallo joined the Spiral team at Block in October 2019. Prior to that, he worked as an engineer for nearly three years at Chaincode Labs, which is “a Bitcoin research and development center based in Midtown Manhattan, New York.” Corallo has been writing updates for the BitcoinJ Open Source Library since June 2012.

Corallo, who is the 10th known contributor to Bitcoin Core, took to Twitter to criticize the small segment of Bitcoin maximalists commonly called “toxic” by the crypto community:

2/ This is particularly damning for Bitcoin b/c instead of the most vocal proponents explaining why Bitcoin is great and unique, the most vocal proponents spend all their time just attacking other projects. Sure, some of them are scams and may deserve it, but that doesn’t help BTC.

— Matt Corallo (@TheBlueMatt) August 8, 2022

This upset a few Bitcoin maximalists, such as Bitcoin lawyer Samson Mow:

these people lost their way

there is no excuse for this behavior

everyone still in this cult needs to wake up. your managers will panic and they won’t think twice before throwing you under the bus.

— udiverse (@udiWertheimer) August 8, 2022

One thing that may have helped drive Bitcoin’s recent price rally is the recent partnership announcement between BlackRock and Coinbase:

28.5 trillion assets under management between senior executives globally offering access to #bitcoin.

An allocation of 0.15% will buy every single BTC sitting on exchanges now.

The number will go up.

— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) August 8, 2022

On August 4, Coinbase’s Brett Tejpaul (who is Head of Coinbase Institutional) and Greg Tusar (who is Head of Institutional Product) published a blog post, stating that Coinbase and BlackRock would “create new access points for institutional crypto adoption by connecting Coinbase Prime and Aladdin.”

The blog post went on to say that “Coinbase is partnering with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, to provide institutional clients of Aladdin®, BlackRock’s end-to-end investment management platform, direct access to crypto, starting with bitcoin, through connectivity with Coinbase Prime.” Apparently, Coinbase Prime will “provide crypto trading, custody, prime brokerage and reporting capabilities to Aladdin’s institutional customer base who are also customers of Coinbase.”

Joseph Chalom, Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships at BlackRock, had this to say:

“Our institutional clients are increasingly interested in gaining exposure to digital asset markets and are focused on how to effectively manage the operational lifecycle of these assets. This connection with Aladdin will allow clients to manage their bitcoin exposures directly within their existing portfolio management and trade flows for a whole portfolio view of risk across asset classes.“