Strengthens
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the best performer for the week was Celsius, up 22.51%.
- Bitcoin extended a rally amid a brighter mood in global markets and as traders await US inflation data and monitor a groundbreaking upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain. Bitcoin jumped around 10% on September 9 and 3.9% on Monday, trading above $22,000. The move was encouraged by a weaker dollar and as investors awaited US inflation numbers, writes Bloomberg.
- Ethereum has completed a key revamp of its blockchain network, marking the crypto world’s most ambitious software upgrade to date. The change replaced power-hungry computers used to order transactions on the network with a more energy-efficient setup using heaps of the network’s native token, Ether. As a result, Ethereum’s energy consumption will decrease by an estimated 99%, writes Bloomberg.
Weaknesses
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the worst performer for the week was Terra Luna, down 53.30%.
- Bitcoin fell more than 10%, the biggest decline since cryptocurrencies plunged in June, as the broad-based selloff in financial markets spilled over into the digital asset sector. Ether fell nearly 9%, even as its underlying Ethereum network was poised for a long-awaited power-saving software upgrade, Bloomberg writes.
- BitGo is suing Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital Holdings for more than $100 million in damages after Galaxy abandoned its planned $1.2 billion purchase of the crypto custodian. The lawsuit cited Galaxy’s “wrongful repudiations and willful and international violations” of the merger agreement, according to a public filing related to the case and reported by Bloomberg.
Possibilities
- The Blockchain Association, a prominent crypto trade group whose members include stablecoin issuer Circle and exchanges Crypto.com and Kraken, is launching its own political action committee (PAC). The move represents yet another attempt by an industry under pressure to push US policy in a more crypto-friendly direction, writes Bloomberg.
- US trading titans and brokerage firms are building a crypto exchange that brings digital asset investments further into the domain of traditional finance by mimicking the structure of how other asset classes trade. EDX Markets will begin trading a limited number of spot crypto tokens starting with a November trail period with the official launch in January, according to a Bloomberg report.
- A pair of former Citadel Securities employees are taking public a cryptocurrency market-making firm they founded with $50 million in venture capitalist backing. Portofino provides crypto liquidity to financial institutions and high net worth individuals (HNWI), trading on both centralized and decentralized exchanges and over the counter (OTC). It also provides advice and technical support for Web3 startups that want to list their assets on stock exchanges, writes Bloomberg.
Threats
- Customers with their life savings frozen at insolvent crypto platform Voyager Digital are watching a bankruptcy auction Tuesday for clues about whether they will finally get their assets back. Voyager users have not been able to access their cryptocurrencies since July 1, when the meltdown of digital assets forced the company to suspend trading, deposits and withdrawals, according to an article published by Bloomberg.
- Ethermine, the largest provider of Ethereum mining services by computing power, will close its servers to miners after the blockchain completes its historic technical upgrade. The news comes on the eve of Ethereum’s long-awaited software overhaul, called Merge, which will shift the most widely used blockchain from a proof of work (PoW) consensus mechanism to proof of stake (PoS).
- Ether led digital assets lower after the groundbreaking software upgrade of the token’s underlying network turned into what some market observers called a “sell the news” event. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization after Bitcoin fell as much as 8.9% to $1,460.
