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I confess that I’ve been skeptical about Facebook, sorry, Meta Platforms’ vision of the metaverse, with virtual meetings, virtual concerts, and Ready Player One-style virtual worlds. But I had a revelation recently while pedaling away at home on my road bike. Yes, at home. My rear wheel was removed and my bike was affixed to a smart trainer made by a company called Wahoo. I was staring at theMacBook screen in front of my bike, riding through a land called Watopia in a cycling application called Zwift. That’s when it hit me that I had been experiencing the metaverse for months without…
The latest Commitments of Traders (COT) report issued Monday night by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for the week ending Nov 23 revealed a three-fold increase in the number of short bitcoin futures contracts held by retail investors compared to the previous week. These holdings, called open interest, represent capital held at the CME as collateral for long and short trades. Shattering the average number of short bitcoin futures held by retail traders (about 798 contracts through last week), the COT report showed a 200% jump in short bitcoin contracts from 887to 2,663. The monetary equivalent of this net…
Since the Recording Industry Association of America introduced the idea of “going platinum,” the milestone of selling 1 million albums has been coveted by musicians throughout the evolution of formats. Now, DeadMau5 has a plan to go platinum in the crypto era. Deadmau5—whose real name is Joel Zimmerman— has collaborated with the rock band Portugal The Man on “This Is Fine,” a new single minted as a non-fungible token (NFT) that debuted today. The project also poses somewhat of a public challenge to the music industry: Can an NFT song go platinum if all 1 million copies are sold? While…
Raghu Yarlagadda is CEO of FalconX, a $3.5 billion crypto institutional service provider and prime broker. I sat down with him this week to discuss how institutions have evolved their approach towards the industry, not only in terms of the assets they trade but also trading behaviors during market volatility. In this interview we discuss: How FalconX takes a unique approach to credit issuance and pricingWhy many institutions have suddenly gotten ‘diamond hands’How it is no longer the ‘Bitcoin and Ethereum’ show for investorsWhy offering NFT services is no longer optionalWhich institutions really care about Tether’s controversial reputation Forbes: To begin, can…
Bitcoin prices dropped sharply in the early morning hours ET Saturday, plunging more than 10% to a low near $43,000. The world’s most prominent cryptocurrency pared losses subsequently, changing hands at around $47,607. Still, bitcoin has dropped more than 16% in the past 24 hours, according to Coindesk. The price of ether also dived, dropping more than 10% to a low near $3,500. It came back somewhat afterward, trading near $3,888. Ether, the world’s second-largest digital coin by market value, has lost more than 14% over the past 24 hours, according to Coindesk. Both cryptocurrencies have experienced turbulent trade since…
Bitcoin prices suffered significant declines today, falling to their lowest in nearly two months and repeatedly dropping below $53,000, a level that has been identified as providing key support. The world’s most valuable digital currency by market value reached as little as $51,808.54 this afternoon, CoinDesk data shows. At this point, it was trading at its lowest level since October 6, additional CoinDesk figures reveal. Following this decline, the cryptocurrency bounced back, rising above $54,000, before continually falling below $53,000 this evening. At the time of this writing, the digital asset was trading close to $53,000. Several analysts spoke to this particular…
On Friday, stocks rose then sunk as traders digested the latest U.S. employment data. Bitcoin followed suit, posting nearly the exact same moves. The world’s largest digital currency dropped as much as 3.4% during the session to trade around $54,960, which is roughly 20% off its recent record highs. U.S. stocks also fell, with the S&P 500 Index losing 1.1% as of 1:10 p.m. in New York. It’s not unusual to see Bitcoin and the stock market trade in tandem in recent weeks. In fact, the 100-day correlation coefficient of Bitcoin and the S&P 500 stands at 0.33, among the…
Britain’s ETC Group said on Thursday it will this month list five new “exchange traded cryptocurrencies” at the Frankfurt stock exchange, adding to the glut of exchange-traded products at European exchanges. Exchange-traded cryptocurrency products are seen as boosting access to the emerging asset class for a wider group of investors. Proponents say they reduce risk of exposure to cryptocurrencies, such as opaque markets and security flaws in related infrastructure. The so-called ETCs, which will list on the Deutsche Borse’s electronic trading platform Xetra, are based on “altcoins” – smaller cryptocurrencies that have been launched in the wake of bitcoin’s growth.…
RIA firm Ritholtz Wealth Management and asset manager WisdomTree are combining to launch an index for investors seeking broad, diversified exposure to crypto assets. The RWM WisdomTree Crypto Index is the basis for a separately managed account platform, provided by licensor Onramp Invest, that will allow financial advisors to put clients in crypto. “We wanted to be able to give people who want it diversified exposure to crypto beyond just, you know, the layer-one behemoths of Ethereum and Bitcoin,” said Michael Batnick, director of research at Ritholtz Wealth Management, which is based in New York City. “It’s a big world…
Following in the footsteps of Tim Berners-Lee and others, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is auctioning off a piece of internet history. Starting today, you can bid in a Christie’s auction to obtain an NFT of his first Wikipedia edit. Wales is also auctioning off the Apple iMac he used to work on the website. Bidding on the non-fungible token will start at $100, though we expect it will take several million to secure it before the auction ends on December 15th. Proceeds from the sale will go to charity and WT Social, Wales’ Facebook and Twitter alternative. In an interview with The Verge, the internet entrepreneur said he wanted to package…