The price of bitcoin neared $68,400 on Wednesday, reaching its highest level since July and sparking a rally across the crypto sector.
Bitcoin is up more than 9% over the past week and ether is up about 7%. Other popular coins have also rallied, with solana up close to 10% in the past seven days and dogecoin up 15%.
The gains have made their way to crypto-pegged stocks. Digital asset exchange Coinbase climbed almost 7% on Wednesday, bringing its three-day rally to 19%. The stock is at its highest since August.
Bitcoin and Coinbase move higher in the last week.
One reason for bitcoin’s 53% gain so far this year is a host of new spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds that hit the market in January, welcoming in a host of new investors. Ether ETFs followed in July.
Investors have bought $1.2 billion in ETF shares in the past three days, bringing total holdings to more than $63 billion. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has accounted for more than 30% of the new purchases.
Samara Cohen, chief investment officer of ETF and index investments at BlackRock, told CNBC recently that 80% of buyers of IBIT are direct investors. Of those, 75% have never owned a BlackRock ETF, she said.
“We went into this journey with the expectation that we needed to educate ETF investors on crypto and on bitcoin specifically,” Cohen said. “As it turns out, we have done a lot of education of crypto investors on the benefits of the ETP wrapper.”
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Morgan Stanley on Friday told its army of financial advisors that it will soon allow them to offer bitcoin ETFs to some clients, a first among major Wall Street banks, CNBC has learned.
The firm’s 15,000 or so financial advisors can solicit eligible clients to purchase shares of two exchange-traded bitcoin funds starting Wednesday, according to people with knowledge of the policy.
The move from Morgan Stanley, one of the world’s largest wealth management firms, is the latest sign of the adoption of bitcoin by mainstream finance. In January, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved applications for 11 spot bitcoin ETFs, heralding the arrival of an investment vehicle for bitcoin that is easier to access, cheaper to own and more readily traded.
So it’s not surprising that Wall Street’s major wealth management businesses didn’t immediately embrace the new ETFs, forbidding their financial advisors from pitching them and only allowing trades if clients actively sought out the product.
Morgan Stanley made the move in response to demand from clients and in an attempt to follow an evolving marketplace for digital assets, said the people, who declined to be identified speaking about the bank’s internal policies.
The bank is still striking a note of caution, however, in the rollout: Only clients with a net worth of at least $1.5 million, an aggressive risk tolerance and the desire to make speculative investments are suitable for bitcoin ETF solicitation, said the people. The investments are for taxable brokerage accounts, not retirement accounts, they added.
The bank will monitor clients’ crypto holdings to make sure they don’t end up with excessive exposure to the volatile asset class, according to the sources.
The only crypto investments approved for solicited purchase at Morgan Stanley are the pair of bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock and Fidelity; private funds from Galaxy and FS NYDIG that the bank made available starting in 2021 were phased out earlier this year.
Morgan Stanley is watching how the market for newly approved ether ETFs develops and hasn’t committed to whether it would provide access to those, the people said.
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Correction: Private funds from Galaxy and FS NYDIG that Morgan Stanley made available starting in 2021 were phased out earlier this year. An earlier version of this story included inaccurate information from Morgan Stanley sources about the company’s crypto investment offerings.
AUSTIN — There is a sort of clubhouse for Austin’s bitcoin believers on the second floor of the Littlefield Building at the corner of Congress Avenue and Sixth Street. The hideaway is at the crossroads of two worlds — the majestic thoroughfare that leads to the Texas State Capitol and the iconic, albeit notorious, stretch of bars, restaurants, and live music that define the capital’s party vibes. It’s an apt metaphor for the space itself.
The Bitcoin Commons is, at once, many things.
By day, it functions as an open plan, fluorescent-lit co-working space for the more corporate-minded bitcoin operators, but at night, it moonlights as a safe space for underground meet-ups of the industry’s rogue actors. Periodically, it plays host to conferences that draw in a mix of attendees ranging from venture capitalists to armed preppers living entirely off the grid. And on some afternoons, once happy hour hits, the kitchen at the back is retrofit with a stowaway bar.
“We also fund developers, and we help them advance their projects,” said Parker Lewis, one of the stewards of the Commons, as well as the author of a new book on bitcoin called “Gradually, Then Suddenly.”
“We help advance bitcoin through education and actually developing the monetary network, the code base, and the applications,” said Lewis, who is widely considered to be one of Texas’ de facto bitcoin ambassadors.
Francisco Chavarria was born in Mexico City and spent time in Salt Lake City, but three years ago, he made the move to Austin to be a part of a community of like-minded thinkers. His company, Yopaki, which is a neobank for bitcoin focused on the Latin American market, just won first place in a hackathon put on at the Commons.
“If you talk to other builders in the competition, a lot happens here,” said Chavarria. “There definitely is a sense of, ‘I don’t need for others to lose for me to win.’ There really is a relationship and a collaboration for bitcoin to succeed.”
“Right now it feels like we’re all winning because of the price, but those of us who have been building in the bear market, we know,” Chavarria added.
Austin’s “Bitcoin Commons” hosts regular meetups and conferences for the city’s bitcoiners.
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Bear or bull market, bitcoiners have flocked to Austin because of a combination of pro-crypto policies, abundant, renewable energy, and an ever-growing network of some of the brightest developers and miners on the planet. And even in the price doldrums, they typically bring the same level of enthusiasm to the conversation — though bitcoin’s recent stretch of record-breaking price moves has gone a long way toward boosting morale.
In March, bitcoin hit multiple, fresh all-time highs, as trader enthusiasm for the digital asset sector soared. A lot of that price run-up has to do with the record flows into the newly-launched spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the U.S., led by the world’s largest asset manager Blackrock and its $15.5 billion iShares Bitcoin Trust, which have helped to solidify bitcoin’s place as an asset class that’s here to stay.
Collectively, these spot ETFs have brought in around $60 billion, and in some cases, they have been breaking records for ETF flows altogether.
“The biggest driver is certainly the ETF flows, which have surpassed the expectations of all but the most bullish pundits,” said Castle Island Venture’s Nic Carter of bitcoin’s record price moves this month. “And these blockbuster flows have materialized before the major wirehouses, asset managers, and RIAs have actually approved the ETF for their clients.”
Carter added that there is also new liquidity coming into bitcoin from Asian markets via two main pathways: bitcoin’s version of non-fungible tokens known as ordinals, as well as bitcoin-issued coins called BRC20 tokens.
In the last 20 years, Austin has matured into one of the country’s leading tech centers, a trend accelerated by the Covid pandemic, which saw industry leaders migrate en masse from California.
“Bitcoin was founded in 2009. A lot has happened post-financial crisis. Austin was already emerging as a tech center, and you know, enter bitcoin, and it just became the logical home,” said Lewis, who runs business development at Zaprite, a bitcoin-native financial services firm.
It helps that Texas is a libertarian-friendly state that actively supports free market policies. It has proven to be a big draw for a group of people who think of bitcoin as a way of life — that is, a monetary network that is decentralized, borderless, and doesn’t answer to central banks or governments.
Austin’s “Bitcoin Commons” draws in an eclectic mix of people, including venture capitalists, bitcoin miners, and coders.
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Many hardcore bitcoiners ironically embrace the term maximalist or maxi as a way to self describe. In Texas, though maxis exist along a professional spectrum from venture capitalists, to miners, coders, company executives, and generalist techies, the eclectic tribe have a few things in common. Many are family-oriented, patriotic carnivores with an aversion to the overreach of government and a strong belief in the right to bear arms, among multiple other personal, individual liberties.
Bitcoin’s eponymous Austin lair, which is adorned with the Texas state flag and bitcoin memorabilia, has adopted Chatham House rules for many of its events to protect the identities of those conversing within its walls. One such meetup is the monthly BitDevs (short for bitcoin developers) gathering, where bitcoin builders, investors, and the bitcoin curious are all welcomed, so long as no pictures or videos are taken.
At these meetings, topics run the gamut, from detailed discussions about code to concerns that the Microsoft-maintained GitHub may pose a greater existential threat to the bitcoin network since much of the development work and conversations among coders happen on that platform. At one such gathering, the moderator of the two-hour session asked the room who ran a bitcoin node. More than half of the people in attendance raised their hands.
After attending multiple Austin BitDev meetups over the last three years, a few common conversation themes have emerged, including the focus on identifying threat vectors to the network and brainstorming workarounds. Beyond software, there are also concerns over hardware vulnerabilities, given that the ASIC chip used in bitcoin mining rigs are manufactured out of China, a country which has proven hostile to the crypto sector in recent years.
The “Bitcoin Commons” functions as a sort of clubhouse for the city’s bitcoin believers. It puts on a mix of programming, including conferences and hackathons, as well as hosts a co-working space by day.
The Commons hosted a hackathon, BitDevs, and a one-day conference dubbed the Bitcoin Takeover on the sidelines of the annual South by Southwest tech festival, which put on virtually no crypto programming this year.
Across those multiple gatherings, there was a newfound interest in talking about the burgeoning ecosystem of projects building on top of bitcoin’s blockchain, which began to heat up with the introduction of ordinals in Jan. 2023 — bitcoin’s version of non-fungible tokens.
One underrated driver of bitcoin’s recent rally is new programming innovations that may allow it to reach technological parity with ethereum. These advancements involve beefing up the bitcoin ecosystem with tools like smart contracts, which are programmable pieces of code that help to eliminate middlemen like banks and lawyers from transactions. That makes it easier for developers to create products and applications for consumers.
BitVM, for example, has a promising plan to do just that. It is ultimately trying to bring smart contracts to the bitcoin network, which has helped spur this renaissance of interest in layer two technology — that is, the startups being built on top of bitcoin’s base chain.
“I’ve never seen deal pacing move this aggressively in the bitcoin space in my entire career,” Carter tells CNBC.
Indeed, the VC appetite for these layer two bitcoin projects has been picking up in the last few months.
PitchBook says that the fourth quarter of 2023 was the first time in almost two years that deal value in the crypto sector had increased, reaching $1.9 billion — up 2.5% from the previous quarter. While still well off the 2021 high of $31 billion, funds are building back interest, and trust, in the space.
Grant Gilliam spent 15 years working in private equity in New York before pivoting to run a bitcoin VC fund called Ten31. This investment platform, which is focused exclusively on bitcoin, has invested $125 million of equity in aggregate since launching five years ago. More than $100 million was deployed in the last two years during the bear market.
“We invest across the bitcoin ecosystem across every major theme,” Gilliam told CNBC. “Anything that is relevant to bitcoin infrastructure, we like to say the picks and shovels of companies building products and services for holders of bitcoin.”
Gilliam, who spent a few years commuting from New York to Austin every month for the BitDevs meetup, said that some of the layer two bitcoin investments are more hype than substance, but he’s still bullish overall on the deal space.
“There’s been a lot of L2 hype lately, mainly driven by the ordinals, and inscriptions, developments or innovations, if you want to call it that,” Gilliam said. “There’s a lot of activity in that right now, but we haven’t been as focused on that. It’s our firm view that the ordinals will prove to be a passing fad.”
Gilliam says that Ten31 is focused on basic building blocks of the ecosystem, such as companies that are providing financial services, which could be custody trading and lending, or projects that are working to scale the lightning network.
Lightning, with is the layer two payment technology meant to realize bitcoin’s original vision of being peer-to-peer cash continues to struggle with the issue of reaching scale. Developers tell CNBC that a lot of engineering work remains to close that gap.
The Boys Club put on its own Austin summit on the sidelines of SXSW with programming on the new internet, crypto, and digital culture.
“Number go up” is a big mantra among bitcoiners, but as the community evolves, so too does the thinking about the price of the coin.
“Price is really an output of many inputs of human beings, building tools to make bitcoin both more secure and a greater utility,” Lewis said. “Price is the best indicator of more people coming to the conclusion that bitcoin is money, and it’s a better store of value, so it is very relevant.”
Every four years, bitcoin undergoes a market making event known as the halving. It cuts the production of new bitcoin in half, and it has typically come before a major run-up in the price of bitcoin.
Miners from around the world flocked to Texas when China banned the practice in 2021, attracted by the abundant renewable energy and a grid that’s friendly to flexible buyers of power — both ideal conditions for miners.
In April, however, the profits for these bitcoin miners will be cut in half.
For some, it may prove an Armageddon-level event. Others have braced for impact by swapping out their fleet of machines for more efficient rigs. The price run-up in bitcoin has also helped to give some of these companies a buffer in their profit margins.
West Texas miner Jamie McAvity has 60 megawatts at his mining site. It runs on a part of the grid that is 90% powered by a mix of solar and wind power.
“If you’ve been in for more than one cycle, you have situated yourself in a place where you can resist the halving to the best of your ability,” McAvity told CNBC at Austin’s Bitcoin Commons.
McAvity, who previously worked for ten years as a trader on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange, added that ETF flows have helped to change the pricing dynamics for the world’s largest coin.
“The spot ETF inflows are so massive that reducing the available supply of newly mined bitcoins from 900 to 450, is probably going to be immaterial relative to that,” he said.
“But who knows, the ETFs could cool off for a while, and it’s hard for someone to credibly say that a reduction in supply is not going to change the market price equilibrium, because that’s a fundamental principle of market economics,” he added.
A ten minute walk west from the Bitcoin Commons is the Austin Proper Hotel, a five-star establishment where the lighting is intentionally dim to strike a certain mood. Here, the Boys Club, a popular and buzzy, female-led organization which self-describes as a “social collective bringing new voices to the new internet” put on its own crypto conference on the sidelines of South by Southwest.
The Boys Club caters to a more blockchain agnostic crowd, where the focus is less on exclusivity to one coin or chain — and more about borrowing the best features from across the ecosystem to solve problems in the real world.
CNBC caught up with Micha Benoliel at the one-day summit. Benoliel built Nodle, a decentralized wireless network that’s now getting into the business of using the blockchain to battle AI-powered deepfakes.
“Blockchain is the only way to make a record that is immutable, and is going to prove the time at which this photo has been taken, or video, and also to help you prove the location and other elements that are going to reinforce that proof, so it creates a real immutable proof of authenticity,” he said.
The Boys Club put on its own Austin summit on the sidelines of SXSW with programming on the new internet, crypto, and digital culture.
CNBC
The one-day popup event gathered together more of a web3 crowd to talk about everything from the latest trends in tokenization to the resurgence of on-chain meme culture.
Similar to other bull runs in the price of bitcoin, some altcoins have seen a meteoric rise alongside blue chip names in crypto, because they’re seen as a comparatively cheaper buy.
Dogecoin, a meme-coin that was started as a joke, now has a market cap of nearly $25 billion, placing it in the top ten most valuable cryptocurrencies on the planet. Boden, a coin named after President Joe Biden, saw a run-up of more than 800% in a six-hour window after Super Tuesday, and the newly popular DogWifHat is collectively worth more than $2 billion.
Typically, this is the bellwether of a peak bubble moment, but analysts say that despite frothy conditions, this bull run is different to past cycles.
The price of bitcoin is cyclical, and it sees price run-ups roughly every four years. Each time, the price floor is higher. What’s also a departure this time around is the fact that institutional money is here in a way that it hasn’t been during past bull runs.
Fundamentals in the crypto market are playing a big role, as well.
In a note from JPMorgan on Mar. 15, analysts credit ether, the world’s second-biggest crypto token by market cap, for being a significant driver of crypto’s recent gains, including Coinbase‘s stock price rise. Ether has rallied nearly 50% so far this year, recently breaching the $4,000 price level and outpacing bitcoin’s returns, before paring back some gains.
“While the focus of the cryptocurrency marketplace has been the net new money going into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs and the positive impact on Bitcoin token prices (here, the spot Bitcoin ETF and its ultimate launch in January has driven the cryptoecosystem over the past several months), we see impact of ETH appreciation also as particularly meaningful,” JPMorgan wrote.
Regulators in the U.S. remain a universal concern for the crypto sector, especially amid reports of the Securities and Exchange Commission probing crypto companies building on the ethereum network.
Still, many in the space, including coders and investors remain optimistic.
Ethereum, the blockchain that underpins ether, underwent a major upgrade on Mar. 13 dubbed Dencun. Developers told CNBC it was expected to slash transaction fees by up to 90%. That is game-changing not just for the end-users, but also for the coders building apps on top of ethereum.
Base, crypto exchange Coinbase’s self-built layer two network, is ethereum-based and allows developers to more easily build decentralized apps. Coinbase’s Base lead, Jesse Pollak, anticipates this will open the door to applications in both the gaming and decentralized social media arena now that it is no longer nearly as cost prohibitive to build these types of programs.
“The thing that is happening with Dencun is we’re going to create a whole new kind of storage on ethereum that’s purpose built for Layer 2s like Base,” Pollak told CNBC.
“That means that right now we pay a ton to ethereum, and we’re going to pay a lot less, which is going to lower the fees for everyone. Because ethereum is basically going to build a product purpose built for us,” continued Pollak.
Chris Dixon, crypto chief at venture firm a16z, echoed that sentiment, noting that part of their portfolio is focused on these startups.
“The core idea is that if you build a social network, or a game or a financial service, on top of the blockchain, it has all sorts of benefits where the money and control flow out to the users and the creators that access the network, as opposed to the companies that control it,” said Dixon. “In the same way that steel was a better way to build bridges and buildings than wood was in the Industrial Revolution, blockchains are a building material.”
After long-awaited spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds made their debut this week,investors are now weighing the prospects of eventual approval of similar ether ETFs.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday greenlighted 11 spot bitcoin BTCUSD, -1.58%
ETFs for the first time. The products, which made its debut trading on Thursday, logged a relatively strong first day.
However, bitcoin fell 6.8% on Friday, leaving it with a 3.2% gain over the past seven days, according to CoinDesk data. It underperformed ether ETHUSD, +1.82%,
which rose 17.6% over the past seven days while it declined 1.2% on Friday.
The news about bitcoin ETFs was mostly priced in, while investors are now looking past it to a potential approval of ether ETFs, analysts said.
“I see value in having an ETH ETF,” Larry Fink, chief executive at the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock, told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Friday. BlackRock, which just launched its iShares bitcoin Trust IBIT,
in November filed an application for a spot ether ETF.
“It’s hard to know exactly what the U.S. regulators would do” about ether ETF applications, said Alonso de Gortari, chief economist at Mysten Labs, an internet infrastructure company.
However, “I would expect that once you open the door, it becomes easier and I think the industry is very excited about it,” de Gortari said. If bitcoin ETFs see an impressive institutional inflow in the coming months, it could make such products more established and set a good precedent for other crypto ETF applications, he said.
The enormous competition and huge inflows into bitcoin ETFs will only boost investors’ interests in an ether ETF, according to Paul Brody, EY’s global blockchain leader. “There’s no doubt that ETH is the next big market and has immediately become a priority for financial services companies,” Brody said in emailed comments.
Compared with bitcoin, the Ethereum blockchain offers more utility and has unique advantages, noted Fadi Aboualfa, head of research at digital assets custodian Copper.
Sandy Kaul, head of digital asset and industry advisory services at Franklin Templeton, said she eventually expects the arrival of ETFs that track a basket of cryptocurrencies. Such products, instead of those based on single crypto, would dominate the space if they are approved, she said.
“Just like the S&P 500 has 500 stocks in it, right? You don’t have just one stock.” Kaul said in a phone interview. The arrival of a bitcoin ETF, is just a “baby step into really beginning to think about the future market structure of crypto,” Kaul added.
However, not everyone is that optimistic. Will McDonough, founder and chairman of Corestone Capital, said the approval of an Ethereum ETF has “a long way to go.”
SEC chairman Gary Gensler previously said bitcoin was the only cryptocurrency he was prepared to publicly label a commodity, rather than a security.
The agency also went after companies that offered crypto staking, which allows investors to earn yields by locking their coins to secure blockchains such as Ethereum. The SEC shut down crypto exchange Kraken’s staking business in the U.S. last year.
One possibility is that “companies will be able to offer an ETH ETF, but they will not be allowed to stake that ETH and earn yield,” noted EY’s Brody.
This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.
Price pressures persist An inflation report for December showed U.S. consumer prices increased more than expected. CPI rose 0.3% in December, according to the Labor Department data, slightly more than expectations of a 0.2% rise. On an annual basis, CPI was up 3.4% year on year, also above a 3.2% rise predicted by economists polled by Dow Jones. The increase in prices was mainly driven by higher shelter costs.
Flat stocks U.S. stocks ended Thursday right around the flatline as the slightly hotter-than-expected inflation data kept any big moves at bay. Stocks in Asia fell as China’s annual exports dropped, but Japan’s Nikkei 225 bucked the trend to extend its record rally.
Big China export drop Data from China showed annual exports falling for the first time in seven years in 2023. The country, however, saw higher-than-expected shipments in December. China exports fell 4.6% last year, its first annual drop since 2016, as demand for China made goods weakened amid a global economic slowdown.
Bitcoin ETFs go! Bitcoin exchange traded fund made its debut on U.S. exchanges on Thursday, tracking wild swings in the prices of the volatile cryptocurrency. There were about 11 ETFs that began trading after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the recent rule change, including the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and the iShares Bitcoin Trust which saw tens millions of shares exchange hands.
[PRO] Goldman Sachs’ favorite Asian tech stocks Goldman Sachs highlights its top opportunities in the Asian tech hardware industry, on improving cyclical recovery, higher demand for artificial intelligence among other factors. Stocks favored include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and many more.
Following the the 3.4% annual rise,the road to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target could be steeper than what many market participants and economists expected.
It also shines the light on the gap between the Fed’s communique and market expectations for rate cuts, which are seen as early as March this year according to the CME FedWatch tool.
“The ‘higher for longer’ party has received one more bullet in its banderole,” said Giuseppe Sette, president of AI-based market research firm Toggle AI said.
“For the entire history of the Fed, rates have always been kept considerably above inflation in any scenario short of a recession. This CPI print pushes the first rate cut further away, possibly not even in 2024.”
But bitcoin ETF trading quickly became an event that would give market players a reason to be excited about.
This allowed regular investors to get a slice of the cryptocurrency pie and spurred hopes that bigger Wall Street institutional traders may also jump into the boat.
Bitcoin, the world’s oldest and most popular cryptocurrency, had a volatile session on Thursday. The cryptocurrency jumped above $49,000, hitting its highest since December 2021 but that rally fizzled out by the end of the day.
Bitcoin ETF also mirrored the choppy moves in the cryptocurrency.
Consumers shop for groceries at a retail chain store in Rosemead, California, on December 12, 2023.
Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images
This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.
Price pressures persist An inflation report for December showed consumer prices increased more than expected. CPI rose 0.3% in December, according to the Labor Department data, slightly more than expectations of a 0.2% rise. On an annual basis, CPI was up 3.4% year on year, also above a 3.2% rise predicted by economists polled by Dow Jones. The increase in prices was mainly driven by higher shelter costs.
Flat stocks U.S. stocks ended Thursday right around the flatline as the slightly hotter-than-expected inflation data kept any big moves at bay. Europe’s Stoxx 600 ended lower for the third straight day, with shares of Marks & Spencer falling to the bottom of the index after the British retailer flagged “near-term” challenges.
Bitcoin ETFs go! Bitcoin exchange traded fund made its debut on U.S. exchanges on Thursday, tracking wild swings in the prices of the volatile cryptocurrency. There were about 11 ETFs that began trading after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the recent rule change, including the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and the iShares Bitcoin Trust which saw tens millions of shares exchange hands.
Tech layoffs Investors on Thursday also witnessed a series of layoffs across technology companies. In a bet to focus on its “biggest product priorities,” Google parent Alphabet laid off several hundred employees. Discord, a popular messaging service used by gamers, also confirmed it will be slashing 17% of its workforce that tallies to about 170 jobs, while Amazon’s Audible division said it will cut about 5% of its broader workforce.
[PRO] Impact of the new bitcoin ETF Analysts are already starting to predict what could happen next now that the long-awaited bitcoin ETFs have begun trading on U.S. exchanges. Hopes grow that the move could bring in the likes of old school institutional traders that have been on the sidelines.
Following the the 3.4% annual rise,the road to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target could be steeper than what many market participants and economists expected.
It also shines the light on the gap between the Fed’s communique and market expectations for rate cuts, which are seen as early as March this year according to the CME FedWatch tool.
“The ‘higher for longer’ party has received one more bullet in its banderole,” said Giuseppe Sette, president of AI-based market research firm Toggle AI said.
“For the entire history of the Fed, rates have always been kept considerably above inflation in any scenario short of a recession. This CPI print pushes the first rate cut further away, possibly not even in 2024.”
But bitcoin ETF trading quickly became an event that would give market players a reason to be excited about.
This allowed regular investors to get a slice of the cryptocurrency pie and spurred hopes that bigger Wall Street institutional traders may also jump into the boat.
Bitcoin, the world’s oldest and most popular cryptocurrency, had a volatile session on Thursday. The cryptocurrency jumped above $49,000, hitting its highest since December 2021 but that rally fizzled out by the end of the day.
Bitcoin ETF also mirrored the choppy moves in the cryptocurrency.
