The Wolf Of Few Streets, just daily trading

Strike partners with Bitnob to facilitate cross-border payments into Africa

The Lightning Network has struck Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria. During a conference in Ghana, Strike CEO Jack Mallers announced that the Bitcoin (BTC) payments company has partnered with the mobile app Bitnob to facilitate payments into Africa.  Mallers made the announcement on stage at AfroBitcoin, a Bitcoin conference in Ghana’s capital city of Accra. He stood alongside Bernard Farah, the Nigerian…

Michael Saylor on the FTX fiasco: ‘Unethical and illegal from the very beginning’

Michael Saylor, the MicroStrategy executive chairman and major Bitcoin (BTC) bull, shared his perspective on the fall of the FTX empire in a recent interview. Saylor said that for years there has been a low-grade “boiling guerrilla war” between the BTC community and the larger crypto community over industry practices that he repeatedly called “shitcoinery.” In Saylor’s perspective, FTX founder…

Bitcoin advocate dishes out sats over Lightning Network to raise BTC awareness

A Bitcoin (BTC) advocate on Twitter known by the name of ShireHodl, or simply Shire, sent over 110 micropayments to first-time Bitcoin Lightning users in response to Michael Saylor’s Lightning Network poll.  Shire asked those new to Lightning to download a Lightning wallet from the App Store or Google Play Store and to send him a QR code invoice. To pay the invoice, Shire scanned the code with…

BTC difficulty drops by the biggest margin since 2021

Tough market conditions continue to affect the Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem as mining difficulty drops by its biggest margin since July 2021. A 7.32% difficulty adjustment took place on Dec. 6 at block height 766,080, marking the sharpest drop in difficulty in over a year. This coincided with a drop in average hashrate from 264.18 EH/s to 245.10 EH/s, according to data from BTC.com. Bitcoin’s mining…

‘Father of the iPod’ helps Ledger create new cold crypto wallet

Hardware wallet provider Ledger, known for its cold-storage devices, announced its seventh crypto wallet in collaboration with the creator of the original iPod. Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iconic iPod Classic model, has partnered with Ledger to help the company design its latest wallet device known as Ledger Stax. The company broke the news on Dec. 6 at Ledger’s bi-annual Web3 developer…

Bitcoin clings to $17K as ARK flags ‘historically significant capitulation’

Bitcoin (BTC) and decentralized blockchains are “as strong as ever” in the wake of the FTX meltdown, ARK Invest says. In the latest edition of its monthly newsletter, “The Bitcoin Monthly,” the investment giant came out firmly bullish on BTC. ARK: FTX scandal may be “most damaging event” ever With BTC price volatility ebbing into December, the industry is still reeling from ongoing FTX…

Bitcoin on-chain data shows 5 reasons why the BTC bottom could be in

After a whirlwind November for Bitcoin (BTC), certain on-chain and Bitcoin price metrics are suggesting that BTC’s bottom could occur in December. In Capriole Investments’ latest report, they provided analysis on Bitcoin finding the bottom. When taking into realized value, miner capitulation, mining electrical costs, downdraw and record hodler numbers, a BTC floor of $16,600-$16,950 seems…

Fir Tree fund sues Grayscale in effort to force changes to Bitcoin Trust

Fir Tree Capital Management has filed a lawsuit against Grayscale Investments demanding information that could be used to force changes to the way it runs its flagship Bitcoin Trust.  According to Bloomberg, a Dec. 6 complaint was filed against Grayscale at the Delaware Court of Chancery and sought to have Grayscale lower its fees, start redemptions and hand over documents relating to its…

Blockstream raises funds for mining at 70% lower company valuation

The depths of a bear market may not be the best time to raise funds but that is exactly what Blockstream is doing. The crypto infrastructure firm has received fresh funding, but at a much lower valuation than previous rounds, according to a Dec. 7 Bloomberg report. Blockstream was valued at $3.2 billion when it held its last Series B funding round raising $210 million in August 2021. Today that…

BTC price hits new December low as Bitcoin dips 2% with Asia stocks

Bitcoin (BTC) hit new month-to-date lows on Dec. 7 as Asian markets fell during trading. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView $16,500 stands as support as BTC price wobbles Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD dipping to lows of $16,736 on Bitstamp, a level not seen since Nov. 30. The pair thus began to erase the ground it had reclaimed into…

Bank of Russia wants to ban miners from selling crypto to Russians

The Russian central bank continues to maintain an extremely negative stance on cryptocurrencies, proposing to ban local miners from selling coins to local people. The Bank of Russia has supported the idea of legalizing cryptocurrency mining in Russia as part of a draft bill introduced in mid-November 2022. However, the Russian central bank wants to allow miners to sell their crypto only on…

Mazars says users’ BTC reserves on Binance are fully collateralized

South African auditor Mazars confirmed on Dec. 7 that cryptocurrency exchange Binance possessed control over 575,742.42 Bitcoin (BTC) of its customers, worth $9.7 billion at the time of publication. Mazars stated that “Binance was 101% collateralized.” The scope of the inquiry included customers’ spot, options, margin, futures, funding, loan and earn accounts for Bitcoin and wrapped Bitcoin…

Bitcoin options data shows bulls aiming for $17K BTC price by Friday’s expiry

Bitcoin (BTC) price crashed to $15,500 on Nov. 21, driving the price to its lowest level in two years. The 2-day-long correction totaled an 8% downtrend and wiped out $230 million worth of leverage long (buy) futures contracts.  The price move gave the false impression to bears that a sub-$15,500 expiry on the Dec. 9 options expiry was feasible, but those bets are unlikely to pay off as the…

GBTC ‘elevator to hell’ sees Bitcoin spot price approach 100% premium

Bitcoin (BTC) investment vehicle Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is trading close to 50% below the BTC price on spot markets. Data from on-chain analytics platform Coinglass confirms that on Dec. 8, GBTC shares hit a new record low of -47.2% against BTC/USD. GBTC troubles pile up post-FTX In the latest bout of nerves to hit the Bitcoin industry since the fall of FTX, GBTC is nearing half-price…

Bitcoin takes liquidity near $17K as US dollar shows weakness pre-CPI

Bitcoin (BTC) ranged below $17,000 at the Dec. 8 Wall Street open as the United States dollar threatened further weakness. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Dollar dips as stocks see modest upt Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD practically flat over the 24 hours to the time of writing. With macro cues lacking, analysts eyed a potential…

Binance CEO, Coinbase exec feature in Masterclass crypto crash-course

For the uninitiated, the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology can be daunting, confusing and difficult to comprehend. Three industry experts and a skeptical economist explore the past, present and future of the burgeoning technology in a new online learning series. Masterclass is a web-based education platform that offers “classes” from subject matter experts in their respective…

Major Grayscale digital currency funds are trading at 34% to 69% discount to NAV

According to statistics sourced from data aggregator YCharts, seven digital currency funds issued by asset manager Grayscale Investments are currently at a discount of 34% to 69% to their net asset value, or NAV. Holdings tracked in the analysis include the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, Ethereum Trust, Ethereum Classic Trust, Litecoin Trust, Zcash Trust, Horizen Trust, Stellar Lumens Trust and…