39 Burst results for "Coindesk"
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from MARKETS DAILY: Crypto Update | SEC Chair Faces Harsh Questions as Ether Spot ETF Proposals Hit Delays
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. It's Thursday, September 28th, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from CoinDesk. My name is Noelle Acheson, CoinDesk collaborator and author of the Crypto's Macro Noun newsletter on Substack. On today's show, we're talking about Ether ETFs, SEC confusion, and more. So you don't miss an episode. Be sure to follow the podcast on your platform of choice. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. Now, a markets roundup. Well, Bitcoin has been busy over the past 24 hours. After that nice run -up yesterday that I thought was a sign of strong investor support, the Bitcoin price rapidly fell back down again. It has been climbing since, however. At 10 a .m. Eastern time, it was more or less flat, trading at $26 ,532. Depending on what happens over the next couple of days, Bitcoin could break the trend of negative performance in September. The ninth month is typically a weak one for crypto's leading asset, delivering negative returns over the past six Septembers. Bitcoin's average performance for the month is almost negative 5%. As of this morning, however, the asset price is up more than 2 % month to date. That kind of a break in the trend would be welcome news. In Ether, interesting things are happening. Like Bitcoin, it climbed yesterday and then fell back, only to start climbing again, but with a more consistent slope, suggesting a steadier over the past 24 hours. Relative to Bitcoin, Ether has notably outperformed over the past week, climbing two tenths of a percent versus Bitcoin's drop of 2 .3%. This could be due to the likely listing next week of the first Ether futures ETFs, which could boost demand and market volume. I'll talk more about this in a moment. In traditional markets, US stocks closed more less flat yesterday, rising in the second half to recover early losses. Over the past 10 days, the S &P 500 is down more than 4 .3%, the steepest 10 -day drop since March. You may remember that March was banking stress month. Investors are rattled by the surge in 10 -year Treasury yields, which yesterday rose above 4 .6 % for the first time since October 2007. The rising rates are investors for three main reasons. One, there's the patterns last seen just before the great financial crisis of 2007 -2008. Two, there's also the impact on company earnings. An article in the Financial Times this morning pointed out that interest expenses for the S &P 600 small cap index hit a record high in the latest batch of second quarter earnings. And 30 % of companies in the S &P 500 are now trading at a higher rate. Reason three, there's the message the market is sending. This is that it expects rates to remain higher for longer. This is likely to keep the dollar strong and inflict more pain on global markets. In Europe, stock indices have been taking a breather from their recent drops, with most showing moderate gains so far today. Over the past month, however, the Euro Stoxx 50, which tracks Eurozone blue chips, is down over 4 .3%. An index of Eurozone economic sentiment released this morning showed a fifth consecutive monthly drop in September. Inflation expectations rose. In commodities, oil prices continued their climb in the face of fears of supply shortages. The Brent crude benchmark rose above $96 per barrel for the first time this year this morning and is now almost 6 .5 % above its level a year ago. However, the market is signalling that this could abate soon. The prices of futures contracts six months out is lower. This suggests a scramble for spot delivery. In other words, oil now and not later. This has been most likely triggered by reports of reserve drawdowns in the US and the need in many areas to build up stocks as winter approaches. Moving over to gold, after a brief attempt at a recovery earlier today, gold slumped back to its support at $1 ,874 per ounce. Like Bitcoin, gold is holding up surprisingly well given the strength of the dollar and of real yields, which are yields adjusted for inflation. Gold normally moves inversely to real yields. When these are high, gold is less attractive as it doesn't produce an income. As measured by the 10 -year Treasury inflation -protected securities, real yields are at their highest since 2009. The last time they were at these levels, gold was roughly half the price it is today. One key macro data point to watch out for is the US Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, or the PCE. This is the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge as it measures goods and services bought by all US households and non -profits, while the CPI only measures purchases by urban households. Tomorrow morning Eastern Time, we get the latest data for August expected to show an uptick. This will largely be due to higher energy prices. Stripping out higher energy and food prices gives us the core PCE index growth, which is what the Fed focuses on. This is forecast to show a continued downtrend. Remember, though, that August's core CPI grew by slightly more month -on -month than expected, so there may be a negative surprise tomorrow as well. This will be relevant for interest rate expectations. Stubborn inflation means that rates will remain, and you've heard this before, higher for longer. Stay tuned, after the break we'll take a look at more SEC frustration and at the likely listing of Ether futures ETFs.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
Fresh update on "coindesk" discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"Welcome back. In this section, we're going to look at increasing political pressure on the Securities and Exchange Commission. But first, it looks like, barring a big surprise today, the first listed products linked to Ether futures will start trading as soon as next week. The Ether futures ETF proposed by volatility shares, in theory, is set to start trading on October 12th, while the Valkyrie Bitcoin ETF can add Ether futures exposure as of October 4th, which is next Wednesday. The SEC could move to stop this from happening, but the SEC is likely to be pretty much shut down over the next week at least. Earlier today, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balcunas tweeted that he had heard that the Securities and Exchange Commission was bringing the listings forward. Apparently, the agency is encouraging those that have proposed Ether futures ETFs to update their filings by tomorrow to get ahead of the shutdown. To be honest, the logic of bringing trading forward isn't clear to me, but Eric has good sources, so there may be something here. While this is not as big a deal as an Ether spot ETF would be, it's not nothing. We're a long way from the crypto market frenzy triggered by the listing of Bitcoin futures ETFs back in October 2021. Monetary liquidity is tight and sentiment is not exactly bubbling, so we're unlikely to see a massive spike, but it could boost demand for the underlying asset from investors. The ETFs will only hold Ether futures trading on the CME, but the price of futures does influence the price of spot through arbitrage and carry trades. Ether spot ETFs are not getting the same kind of support, however. Unsurprisingly, the SEC has decided to delay a decision on the proposals from VanEck and ARK21 shares for Ether spot ETFs. At time of recording, we had not heard anything about the Bitcoin spot ETFs that have not already been delayed, the proposals from BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco and others, but this could change over the course of the day. And finally, staying with the SEC, yesterday, the House Financial Services Committee hearing regarding oversight of the agency gave SEC chair Gary a chance to reiterate the same confusion over what is and isn't a security. It also gave committee members the opportunity to highlight yet again the inconsistencies in SEC communication and the agency's lack of cooperation with Congress. If anything, the vocabulary and tone at this hearing was notably harsher than the last one. Committee chair Rep. McHenry opened with a barely veiled threat to issue a subpoena to the SEC, which would be a first from a congressional committee. Another memorable moment was delivered by Rep. Richie Torres, like Gensler, a Democrat. He asked the SEC chair if a Pokemon card was a security, to which Gensler replied, probably not. He then asked if a tokenized version of a Pokemon card was a security. Gensler waffled and said that he would need more information. As Rep. Torres pointed out, this questions the SEC's claim that it is technology neutral. The hearing yesterday is unlikely to change much in the short term, and like most congressional hearings, it was an opportunity for sound bites and public positioning. But the dialogue is getting more aggressive, and the political pressure on the SEC to give some answers is increasing. That's it for today's show. You can reach us at podcasts at coindesk.com. Do also please send us questions you'd like us to address on the Spotify Q &A. Follow us, and if you like the show, please leave us a 5-star rating on your platform of choice. Markets Daily is produced and edited by Michelle Musso, with executive production by Jared Schwartz. I'm Noelle Atchison for Coindesk. We're back tomorrow with more market news and insights.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
A highlight from Crypto Update | SEC Chair Faces Harsh Questions as Ether Spot ETF Proposals Hit Delays
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. It's Thursday, September 28th, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from CoinDesk. My name is Noelle Acheson, CoinDesk collaborator and author of the Crypto's Macro Noun newsletter on Substack. On today's show, we're talking about Ether ETFs, SEC confusion, and more. So you don't miss an episode. Be sure to follow the podcast on your platform of choice. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. Now, a markets roundup. Well, Bitcoin has been busy over the past 24 hours. After that nice run -up yesterday that I thought was a sign of strong investor support, the Bitcoin price rapidly fell back down again. It has been climbing since, however. At 10 a .m. Eastern time, it was more or less flat, trading at $26 ,532. Depending on what happens over the next couple of days, Bitcoin could break the trend of negative performance in September. The ninth month is typically a weak one for crypto's leading asset, delivering negative returns over the past six Septembers. Bitcoin's average performance for the month is almost negative 5%. As of this morning, however, the asset price is up more than 2 % month to date. That kind of a break in the trend would be welcome news. In Ether, interesting things are happening. Like Bitcoin, it climbed yesterday and then fell back, only to start climbing again, but with a more consistent slope, suggesting a steadier over the past 24 hours. Relative to Bitcoin, Ether has notably outperformed over the past week, climbing two tenths of a percent versus Bitcoin's drop of 2 .3%. This could be due to the likely listing next week of the first Ether futures ETFs, which could boost demand and market volume. I'll talk more about this in a moment. In traditional markets, US stocks closed more less flat yesterday, rising in the second half to recover early losses. Over the past 10 days, the S &P 500 is down more than 4 .3%, the steepest 10 -day drop since March. You may remember that March was banking stress month.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
Fresh update on "coindesk" discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"Meet the all-new Kraken Pro, the powerful, customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. It's Kraken's most powerful trading platform ever, packed with trading features like advanced order management and analytics tools, all in a redesigned, modular trading interface. So head to pro.kraken.com and trade like a pro. Not investment advice. Some crypto products and markets are unregulated. The unpredictable nature of the crypto assets market can lead to loss of funds and profits, may be subject to capital gains tax.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
SBF TRIAL: 09/28 UPDATE
"Welcome to The SBF Trial, a Coindesk Podcast Network newsletter bringing you daily insights from inside the courtroom where Sam Bankman -Fried will try to stay out of prison. Follow the Coindesk Podcast Network to get the audio each morning with content from the Coindesk regulation team and voiced by Wondercraft AI. After multiple consecutive setbacks for the former FTX CEO and his defense team, Judge Lewis Kaplan seemed to have been in a slightly more generous mood yesterday. The once celebrated crypto mogul will be able to use an air -gapped laptop to take notes while in court during the entirety of his trial which starts October 3rd in New York City, the judge said in a ruling. We will spare you the Google search for what that means. Since the laptop is air -gapped, Bankman -Fried will have no connection to the internet or local area networks. The computer is physically isolated from unsecured networks which also means that data can only be uploaded through the computer via USB and the like. In other words, Bankman -Fried will have no way of messaging with reporters or attempting to contact witnesses. All he is able to do is take notes. Judge Kaplan also ruled that Bankman -Fried can wear suits in the courthouse as opposed to his prison uniform which he had worn to some court hearings since being remanded into custody in August. This may help with potential bias from jurors who might unconsciously perceive the FTX founder as an already convicted criminal just by his look if he wore the beige prison garb. Even though this week marked three wins for Bankman -Fried's team, Judge Kaplan on Tuesday said he will let Bankman -Fried's lawyers ask some of the Department of Justice's witnesses about their recreational drug use and other questions tied to their running of FTX and Alameda Research. These motions seem to be a lot less significant than some of the requests that the defense team had filed that had been denied. Bankman -Fried's lawyers, for example, are still fighting to release the FTX founder for the duration of his trial to ensure fairness. Judge Kaplan had previously denied the defense's motion to release him ahead of his trial. The prosecution late on Wednesday afternoon opposed the latest motion, saying that it largely recycles the defendant's generalized claims regarding the manner in which he would like to assist his counsel in his defense, it said in a filing. There will be a hearing at 10 a .m. Eastern time today on the motion. Want to follow along? Sign up for Coindesk's new daily newsletter, The SBF Trial, bringing you insights from the courthouse and around the case. You can get the podcast each day right here by following the Coindesk Podcast Network. Thanks for listening.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
Fresh update on "coindesk" discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. It's Thursday, September 28th, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from CoinDesk. My name is Noelle Acheson, CoinDesk collaborator and author of the Crypto's Macro Noun newsletter on Substack. On today's show, we're talking about Ether ETFs, SEC confusion, and more. So you don't miss an episode. Be sure to follow the podcast on your platform of choice. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. Now, a markets roundup. Well, Bitcoin has been busy over the past 24 hours. After that nice run-up yesterday that I thought was a sign of strong investor support, the Bitcoin price rapidly fell back down again. It has been climbing since, however. At 10 a.m. Eastern time, it was more or less flat, trading at $26,532. Depending on what happens over the next couple of days, Bitcoin could break the trend of negative performance in September. The ninth month is typically a weak one for crypto's leading asset, delivering negative returns over the past six Septembers. Bitcoin's average performance for the month is almost negative 5%. As of this morning, however, the asset price is up more than 2% month to date. That kind of a break in the trend would be welcome news. In Ether, interesting things are happening. Like Bitcoin, it climbed yesterday and then fell back, only to start climbing again, but with a more consistent slope, suggesting a steadier over the past 24 hours. Relative to Bitcoin, Ether has notably outperformed over the past week, climbing two tenths of a percent versus Bitcoin's drop of 2.3%. This could be due to the likely listing next week of the first Ether futures ETFs, which could boost demand and market volume. I'll talk more about this in a moment. In traditional markets, US stocks closed more less flat yesterday, rising in the second half to recover early losses. Over the past 10 days, the S &P 500 is down more than 4.3%, the steepest 10-day drop since March. You may remember that March was banking stress month. Investors are rattled by the surge in 10-year Treasury yields, which yesterday rose above 4.6% for the first time since October 2007. The rising rates are investors for three main reasons. One, there's the patterns last seen just before the great financial crisis of 2007-2008. Two, there's also the impact on company earnings. An article in the Financial Times this morning pointed out that interest expenses for the S &P 600 small cap index hit a record high in the latest batch of second quarter earnings. And 30% of companies in the S &P 500 are now trading at a higher rate. Reason three, there's the message the market is sending. This is that it expects rates to remain higher for longer. This is likely to keep the dollar strong and inflict more pain on global markets. In Europe, stock indices have been taking a breather from their recent drops, with most showing moderate gains so far today. Over the past month, however, the Euro Stoxx 50, which tracks Eurozone blue chips, is down over 4.3%. An index of Eurozone economic sentiment released this morning showed a fifth consecutive monthly drop in September. Inflation expectations rose. In commodities, oil prices continued their climb in the face of fears of supply shortages. The Brent crude benchmark rose above $96 per barrel for the first time this year this morning and is now almost 6.5% above its level a year ago. However, the market is signalling that this could abate soon. The prices of futures contracts six months out is lower. This suggests a scramble for spot delivery. In other words, oil now and not later. This has been most likely triggered by reports of reserve drawdowns in the US and the need in many areas to build up stocks as winter approaches. Moving over to gold, after a brief attempt at a recovery earlier today, gold slumped back to its support at $1,874 per ounce. Like Bitcoin, gold is holding up surprisingly well given the strength of the dollar and of real yields, which are yields adjusted for inflation. Gold normally moves inversely to real yields. When these are high, gold is less attractive as it doesn't produce an income. As measured by the 10-year Treasury inflation-protected securities, real yields are at their highest since 2009. The last time they were at these levels, gold was roughly half the price it is today. One key macro data point to watch out for is the US Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, or the PCE. This is the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge as it measures goods and services bought by all US households and non-profits, while the CPI only measures purchases by urban households. Tomorrow morning Eastern Time, we get the latest data for August expected to show an uptick. This will largely be due to higher energy prices. Stripping out higher energy and food prices gives us the core PCE index growth, which is what the Fed focuses on. This is forecast to show a continued downtrend. Remember, though, that August's core CPI grew by slightly more month-on-month than expected, so there may be a negative surprise tomorrow as well. This will be relevant for interest rate expectations. Stubborn inflation means that rates will remain, and you've heard this before, higher for longer. Stay tuned, after the break we'll take a look at more SEC frustration and at the likely listing of Ether futures ETFs.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL: Inside Sam Bankman-Fried's Trial Defense Episode 3
"In the first two episodes of our series digging into the case against SPF, we looked at two of his potential defenses. The first, to blame FTX's downfall on the failings of his underlings, and the second, to blame his lawyers. In part three, we're laying out another line of SPF's defense, and one that likely won't play out in the court of law, but rather in the court of public opinion. SPF is taking aim at Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, and its CEO, Cheng Peng Zhao, or CZ, who he alleges is not exactly innocent in sparking the bank run that led to FTX's collapse. While there may be some truth to that statement, as we'll explore in this episode, it's important to remember that SPF isn't charged with the collapse of FTX, but rather the fraud that led to it. And if you consider that, the similarities between SPF, FTX, CZ, and Binance start to look even more interesting, so much so that it's certainly worth asking. If SPF were to be found guilty, what should become of CZ? I'm Zach Guzman. You're listening to the SPF Defense Podcast, a coinage investigation.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
Fresh update on "coindesk" discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"Welcome to The SBF Trial, a Coindesk Podcast Network newsletter bringing you daily insights from inside the courtroom where Sam Bankman-Fried will try to stay out of prison. Follow the Coindesk Podcast Network to get the audio each morning with content from the Coindesk regulation team and voiced by Wondercraft AI. After multiple consecutive setbacks for the former FTX CEO and his defense team, Judge Lewis Kaplan seemed to have been in a slightly more generous mood yesterday. The once celebrated crypto mogul will be able to use an air-gapped laptop to take notes while in court during the entirety of his trial which starts October 3rd in New York City, the judge said in a ruling. We will spare you the Google search for what that means. Since the laptop is air-gapped, Bankman-Fried will have no connection to the internet or local area networks. The computer is physically isolated from unsecured networks which also means that data can only be uploaded through the computer via USB and the like. In other words, Bankman-Fried will have no way of messaging with reporters or attempting to contact witnesses. All he is able to do is take notes. Judge Kaplan also ruled that Bankman-Fried can wear suits in the courthouse as opposed to his prison uniform which he had worn to some court hearings since being remanded into custody in August. This may help with potential bias from jurors who might unconsciously perceive the FTX founder as an already convicted criminal just by his look if he wore the beige prison garb. Even though this week marked three wins for Bankman-Fried's team, Judge Kaplan on Tuesday said he will let Bankman-Fried's lawyers ask some of the Department of Justice's witnesses about their recreational drug use and other questions tied to their running of FTX and Alameda Research. These motions seem to be a lot less significant than some of the requests that the defense team had filed that had been denied. Bankman-Fried's lawyers, for example, are still fighting to release the FTX founder for the duration of his trial to ensure fairness. Judge Kaplan had previously denied the defense's motion to release him ahead of his trial. The prosecution late on Wednesday afternoon opposed the latest motion, saying that it largely recycles the defendant's generalized claims regarding the manner in which he would like to assist his counsel in his defense, it said in a filing. There will be a hearing at 10 a.m. Eastern time today on the motion. Want to follow along? Sign up for Coindesk's new daily newsletter, The SBF Trial, bringing you insights from the courthouse and around the case. You can get the podcast each day right here by following the Coindesk Podcast Network. Thanks for listening.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL: 09/27 UPDATE
"Welcome to the SBF trial, a Coindesk podcast network newsletter bringing you daily insights from inside the courtroom where Sam Bankman -Fried will try to stay out of prison. Follow the Coindesk podcast network to get the audio each morning with content from the Coindesk regulation team and voiced by Wondercraft AI. Judge Lewis Kaplan will indeed let Sam Bankman -Fried's defense team ask certain Department of Justice witnesses about their recreational drug use, sort of. The judge, who has overseen the case for nearly a year now, inched closer to resolving outstanding issues ahead of trial. Last week, it was the Daubert motions regarding expert witnesses. Yesterday, it was resolving most of the motions addressing testimony and evidence questions. The defense team can cross -examine cooperating witnesses about issues like privileged company information and their recreational drug use, though the attorneys need to notify the court beforehand. The prosecution can present evidence tied to FTX's bankruptcy during the trial over the defense's objections. We'll also see information about the FTT token and whether its price was manipulated by other FTX insiders. Separately, as reported yesterday, Bankman -Fried is once again trying to get himself out of second and through the duration of his trial. The FTX founder was locked up in August after Judge Kaplan ruled he'd likely try to tamper with witnesses. Earlier this month, his request to overturn that decision was denied, and last week, an appeals court refused to alter the ruling. But in a Monday letter, lawyers for the disgraced crypto CEO asked a New York court to let him stay at a temporary residence in the city with a security guard. They also asked the judge to let Bankman -Fried travel to his attorneys' workspaces during the trial itself because it was exceedingly difficult to prepare for the trial from jail. The security guard, who the lawyers say will remain with Bankman -Fried at the residence, will also make sure he doesn't have any visitors or access to any computers, cell phones, the internet, television, or any other electronic devices, the letter said. It's unclear if p the five .m. Eastern time today for the DOJ to weigh in on the application. Defense attorneys have also requested that Bankman -Fried be allowed to wear a suit during the trial. During his last appearance before Judge Kaplan, he wore a prison uniform and was shackled. We're still waiting for the trial to start. The trial will start with jury selection on October 3rd at 930 a .m. Eastern time. The DOJ anticipates this taking the better part of a day. White -collar attorneys believe it'll take longer. Either way, opening statements will likely begin the day after a jury is seated. The DOJ also anticipates bringing some witnesses up to testify as soon as next week, with the court docket hinting that those witnesses may well be FTX insiders like Gary Wang, Caroline Ellison, and Nishad Singh.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from MARKETS DAILY: Crypto Update | Bitcoin ETFs in Limbo, Regulatory Moves, and Global Crypto Growth
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. It's Wednesday, September 27th, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from Coindesk. My name is Noelle Acheson, Coindesk collaborator and author of the Crypto's Macro Now newsletter on Substack. On today's show, we're talking about Bitcoin ETFs, crypto market expansion, and more. So you don't miss an episode, be sure to follow the podcast on your platform of choice. And just a reminder, Coindesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. Bitcoin jumped earlier today after a couple of days of continuing to trade range -bound. And it was up over 1 .6 % over the past 24 hours, trading at $26 ,606. This comes in spite of another delay from the SEC on two of the outstanding Bitcoin spot ETF proposals. More on this in a moment. It also comes in the absence of any clear positive catalysts. We could be seeing the manifestation of a strengthening investor interest. Given the eye -watering climb in the US dollar over the past few months and the spreading acceptance of the Fed's higher -for -longer mantra, it is surprising that Bitcoin hasn't been under more pressure. Its relative resilience suggests steady support. What we're seeing now could be the support picking up. Ether increased by even more than Bitcoin and is trading up roughly 2 .2 % over the past 24 hours, up at $1 ,619. In traditional markets, US stocks are steadying after yesterday's drop, with the S &P 500 and NASDAQ both up almost 0 .2 % and the Dow Jones flat. The markets are uneasy, though. One index to keep an eye on is the VIX, which measures implied stock market volatility derived from options pricing. Yesterday, this reached its highest level since May. In Europe, stocks also seem to be taking a breather. The FTSE 100 is down just over 0 .1%, while the German DAX and the Euro stock 600 are both flat on yesterday's close. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei index rose almost 0 .2 % on the back of reports that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has asked his cabinet to compile a new economic plan to ease the pain of inflation. China's Shanghai Composite also rose 0 .2 % after indications from the country's central bank that it would step up policy adjustments to support the economy. This also boosted the Hang Seng, which was up more than 0 .8%. In commodities, the Brent crude benchmark has resumed its climb. Data out yesterday showed that US crude stockpiles at the key Cushing, Oklahoma storage hub are at their lowest in 14 months. This is understandably keeping traders on edge. This morning, the price once again broke above $94 per barrel. This is an increase of 4 % from the weekly low reached on Tuesday. Brent is now 25%, above its price in June, when Saudi Arabia and Russia announced production cuts. The decline in the gold price continues, down 0 .7 % so far today, and down almost 2 % since the beginning of the week. The price per ounce is currently $1 ,887, the lowest since early March. Stay tuned, after the break, we'll take a look at some moves on the ETF front, and more crypto expansion outside the US.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
A highlight from Crypto Update | Bitcoin ETFs in Limbo, Regulatory Moves, and Global Crypto Growth
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. It's Wednesday, September 27th, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from Coindesk. My name is Noelle Acheson, Coindesk collaborator and author of the Crypto's Macro Now newsletter on Substack. On today's show, we're talking about Bitcoin ETFs, crypto market expansion, and more. So you don't miss an episode, be sure to follow the podcast on your platform of choice. And just a reminder, Coindesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. Bitcoin jumped earlier today after a couple of days of continuing to trade range -bound. And it was up over 1 .6 % over the past 24 hours, trading at $26 ,606. This comes in spite of another delay from the SEC on two of the outstanding Bitcoin spot ETF proposals. More on this in a moment. It also comes in the absence of any clear positive catalysts. We could be seeing the manifestation of a strengthening investor interest. Given the eye -watering climb in the US dollar over the past few months and the spreading acceptance of the Fed's higher -for -longer mantra, it is surprising that Bitcoin hasn't been under more pressure. Its relative resilience suggests steady support. What we're seeing now could be the support picking up. Ether increased by even more than Bitcoin and is trading up roughly 2 .2 % over the past 24 hours, up at $1 ,619. In traditional markets, US stocks are steadying after yesterday's drop, with the S &P 500 and NASDAQ both up almost 0 .2 % and the Dow Jones flat. The markets are uneasy, though. One index to keep an eye on is the VIX, which measures implied stock market volatility derived from options pricing. Yesterday, this reached its highest level since May. In Europe, stocks also seem to be taking a breather. The FTSE 100 is down just over 0 .1%, while the German DAX and the Euro stock 600 are both flat on yesterday's close. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei index rose almost 0 .2 % on the back of reports that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has asked his cabinet to compile a new economic plan to ease the pain of inflation. China's Shanghai Composite also rose 0 .2 % after indications from the country's central bank that it would step up policy adjustments to support the economy. This also boosted the Hang Seng, which was up more than 0 .8%. In commodities, the Brent crude benchmark has resumed its climb. Data out yesterday showed that US crude stockpiles at the key Cushing, Oklahoma storage hub are at their lowest in 14 months. This is understandably keeping traders on edge. This morning, the price once again broke above $94 per barrel. This is an increase of 4 % from the weekly low reached on Tuesday. Brent is now 25%, above its price in June, when Saudi Arabia and Russia announced production cuts. The decline in the gold price continues, down 0 .7 % so far today, and down almost 2 % since the beginning of the week. The price per ounce is currently $1 ,887, the lowest since early March. Stay tuned, after the break, we'll take a look at some moves on the ETF front, and more crypto expansion outside the US.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from MONEY REIMAGINED: Breaking Down Barriers to Crypto Adoption | Insights from Jan Van Eck and Matt Hougan
"You're listening to Coindesk's Money Reimagined with Michael Casey and Sheila Warren. Hello and welcome to another edition of Money Reimagined. I'm Michael Casey. Listen to us weekly on the Coindesk podcast network or wherever you get your podcasts. We would love to hear from coindesk .com. Subject line Money Reimagined. Sheila is out this week so it's me on my own but what I'm bringing to you are recordings from an interview I did earlier this month with two leaders in fund management, both of whom have significant interests in crypto. One is Jan Van Eck, the CEO of Van Eck funds and the other is Matt Hogan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management. Van Eck and Bitwise have both filed applications with for Bitcoin. The question I wanted to put to you guys, and I'll go to you first, Jan, is I've been covering this space for 10 years now. And I think we all thought there may be some tipping point moment when the world would suddenly embrace this. And certainly there's been some incredible growth, both in terms of prices and activity and development, phenomenal growth. But at the same time, it always feels like, no, it's not yet there. So what is the single most important barrier that you see toward wider adoption of crypto? Sure. Thank you. I really break it down into, are you talking about crypto as an investment, as an asset class that should be in people's portfolios, or as a technology to be adopted? And I use this example of the relational database, which was a big breakthrough in the architecture of databases 50 years ago or more. And it created a lot more productivity, almost like AI is doing with technology today. But who cares? It wasn't investable, right? It was a nice technology, but it wasn't investable. So I'll start with the investable aspect of it. And I think that since 2017, I firmly believe that Bitcoin is a store of value alternative to gold. But I also say it's sort of like an eight -year -old child. It's going through evolution and adoption, even this year, with the ordinals kind of break through for a while and sort of transaction fees being a thing in Bitcoin, right? It's evolving, it's code, it's kind of living. And I think there's a lot of investor types that haven't adopted it yet. And that's what I see kind of going forward in the future, whether it's probably frontier countries adopting it more, maybe even formally through their central banks or something like that. I think that's foreseeable. I don't see the German central bank or the central bank buying it anytime soon, but it's possible. One of my colleagues pointed out, I think you all did a survey of, sorry, this is a long answer, but yeah, Coindesk did a survey, I think, of perceptions globally of crypto and there was a big break between EM and I guess specifically it was energy usage. It being friendlier for energy usage was the majority view in the emerging markets and in the developed markets, it wasn't that, it was the opposite. So anyway, I see Bitcoin as kind of going through cycles and gradually getting more investor adoption, the ETF aside. So let me stop there and give it to my colleague, Matt. Thanks John. I agree. And I like that separation of investment case versus sort of maybe real world utility. I would add on the investment case, I think it's already there. I agree. It's a digital alternative to gold. And so the people who are holding it are using it for its use case. And I think the barrier to mainstream adoption really is the ETF. I know we'll talk about that more later, but I think if you look back at gold, it was the ETF that brought it into the mainstream. There were a few gold funds before the ETF. Van Eck ran one of the longest running, maybe the longest running, a phenomenal fund, but it really wasn't mainstream until we had an ETF. And I think that will be the tipping point. On real world use cases, if you look at like the Ethereum ecosystem, I actually think we surmounted one of the major hurdles over the last two years. I think what stopped the NFT boom and the DeFi boom was actually the rise in transaction costs as much as anything else. I think there was not enough throughput in that ecosystem to allow it to go mainstream. And I think the development of layer twos have allowed it. I think that's necessary, but not sufficient. So there's still additional barriers, there are regulatory barriers, there are design use case barriers, but I actually think that throughput question was the biggest one and we surmounted it. We just haven't seen the fruits of it because of these other steps that we need to take as well. Okay. So there's actually both of those answers, some things I want to dive into a little bit here. The first one is like this idea of it being gold. And I think in a way, I think maybe you can read from it slightly differently because Jan, you're talking, this is what its use case is, but there is still some evolution in a way that Bitcoin needs to go into. What I think is fascinating about that is like, okay, gold isn't going to evolve. It is just gold. It's in the ground, right? But there is this Bitcoin is code, but it's also a community. It's a living, breathing ecosystem of human beings, which makes it sort of unique. And so therefore, like, you know, how it evolves into being recognized for being the status. Is there an educational component to this, for example? Like, is it important that people kind of get in their heads? We can all use the digital gold analogy, but even getting there requires an understanding about why this actually does do that. Well, let me, this is Jan. I am going to pick a fight with you on the gold side because the use of gold as an investment has changed dramatically over the last 100 years. So even if you look at the history of our company, VanEck, the reason we started our first gold fund as a gold mining fund is it was illegal to own gold in 1968. So you see both Bitcoin and gold being affected not just sort of by securities regulation, but much bigger political, debates. even geopolitical But if you go back to before FDR, right, gold was the underpinning of central banks globally with the idea of trying to reduce currency volatility so that there would be more global trade and global wealth. But then they moved to basically away from the gold system. FDR did when he wanted to spend more money during World War II. Anyway, so, you know, gold has been in and out. And now more recently, central banks around the central banks because they don't trust the U .S. to hold their dollars anymore. Okay, so maybe that's a little historical quibble, but I do think that the role changes and I think it will change with Bitcoin going forward as well, just sticking to Bitcoin. It still sounds to me as if that is a discussion about the external factors, right, i .e., regulatory models, whatever, where governments stand. And all of that is maybe what the composition of what gold is and what a secure, uncorrelated investment needs to be is all contingent upon what is actually happening in that geopolitical circle. So in some respects, Matt, it gets back to your point about like, we're still sitting here waiting for the regulators to make a decision about an ETF or whatever. Yeah, I do think we are. I wanna hit one more thing on the gold thing and then I'll get to that because I think it's really important. There is this perception that gold has been the same for 5 ,000 years, completely wrong. Most people's perceptions about gold are untrue. We went off the gold standard in the early 1970s and people didn't know what gold was, right? They were figuring out what its role in the world was. Coincidentally, or maybe not coincidentally, that was the single best decade to be invested in gold. That was a phenomenal time. When stores of value move from uncertainty to established is when they accrue a lot of value. And that's what's happening in Bitcoin. I think there's some direct analogies to gold. I'd also add gold is a lot more volatile than people give it credit for. People think of it as this steady eddy. It has big swings up and down 20, 30 % a year. A store of value doesn't have to be day to day, unvolatile to be useful. It has to hold value or accrue value over long periods of time. And I think people discredit Bitcoin because they misunderstand gold a little bit. Just to add a comment on Bitcoin before we get off of that, gold shares, to your point, like Bitcoin miners fell 90 % from 2011 to their lows in 2016. I mean, you don't get worse than that, right, in terms of volatility. And that's a part of the ecosystem. It's not bullion, but still, I completely agree with you. So I just wanted to add that. I do think also, and I really want to push you, Matt, on this, that we have a global view of regulation of Bitcoin, right, because China has really taken its foot off the brake over the last year. And I think that's, you know, I call it the country the size of the United States. I think that's super important. Yeah, I think that's really important, too. I actually agree. And I think that's been going on for the last decade. It's sort of like a blanket that won't cover the whole world. And when somebody pulls it, then another government's like, oh, maybe we have an opportunity. I think that's what we saw in China with the U .S. being more restrictive, and then Hong Kong saying, well, what if we aggressively banked gold? Maybe there's an economic opportunity there. And I think it's sort of anti -fragile in that sense. Can I just punch down, maybe we're going to move to the technology side, but I just want to punch down on Bitcoin, because I think it, as an investment, is potentially relevant to everyone's portfolios here at this conference. I mean, you may not like, there are investors like Warren Buffett that will never invest in gold and would never invest in Bitcoin. But for a lot of people, the biggest risk out there, I would say, macro risk, is U .S. federal budget deficit. And I don't know of a better hedge than gold or Bitcoin. So maybe that risk doesn't come to fruition in our lifetimes, but it has got to be an alternative that people think of regardless of everything else in crypto. Yeah. Jan and I are going to keep going back and forth. I would add, it doesn't have to come to fruition for gold to be a good, for Bitcoin to be a good investment. It's an insurance against that potentiality. And if you're a wealthy individual, that's one of the biggest risks to your long term wealth and holding that insurance policy regardless of the outlook. Last thing I would add is we've come a long way. The other mistake people make when looking at Bitcoin regulation is like evaluating us today versus a year ago. If you evaluate us today versus 10 years ago, massive progress, even today versus five years ago. Look at the conversation in Congress today around crypto versus where it was two or three years ago. People need to relax a little, take the long view, and they'll probably have a better outlook for their long term investment.
The Bad Crypto Podcast
A highlight from Crypto Kingpins: The War Between SBF and CZ
"It's been almost one year since FTX collapsed and created a horrific ripple effect in the crypto industry. Sam Bankman -Fried and Chengpeng Zhao have become key players in this incident, and a new podcast goes behind the scenes to tell about exactly what took place. With SBF's trial ramping up as we speak, we're pleased to welcome Tom Wright, one of the creators of the new Crypto Kingpins podcast to the show, to share some insights. So let's go ahead and get into it today on our episode number 697 of the Bad Crypto Podcast. Five, four, three, two, one, go. Who's bad? Well, what do you know? Once again, it's the Bad Crypto Podcast, the show for the crypto curious and crypto serious. We had a week off because I was traveling en France, and was Travis keynoting at a crypto event in Manila. He was the thriller in Manila. And how was it, Trev? I tell you what, you know, I think I maybe made a quote of this before. Somebody said, go where you're celebrated, not where you're tolerated. And I do think in Puerto Rico sometimes it's like, you know, the natives tolerate, they don't really like the gringos, but they tolerate them. And then there's some people that'll throw hate. So, but in the Philippines, oh my God, they are so open and welcome and kind. And like, hello, sir, how can I help you, sir? Like just most lovable people, probably that I've ever encountered in the world. Thailand, the same, very nice people. Not a lot of crime in these places. I think maybe the Buddhist nature of that. And they're like, oh, you know, and it was so nice, very nice. And the keynote was great. They had me kick off the whole conference. So the founder came up, Dr. Donald Lin, he came up, did a little thing. And boom, then they had me kick off the keynote. And I think it was one of the better ones that I've done. I think it'll be up on YouTube here shortly and we'll share the link when that comes available. I had a few people come up and tell me it was one of the best keynotes they've ever seen. So I was like, ah, you've not seen very many keynotes. Perfect answer. Well, I'm sure you did a fantastic job and represented the Republic of Bad Cryptopia. So, you know, it's hard to believe that it's been a year since the dominoes started falling. You know, Luna was first, then FTX and Three Arrows, and then Celsius. And it's just been, it's gonna be a bear market anyway, but boy, the downward pressure exerted by these, you know, horrible black swan incidents have made it a really, really bad bear market. And of course, we've been here with you guys throughout it all. We've not abandoned you. We've not turned into bears. It was like a kick to the ass, a nudge, an elbow to your face, and then a kick to the crotch. And here we are. And the bear markets can be - Here we are. Here we go, sweetie. It was fun, fun times. Crypto goes up, crypto goes down. Or as our next guest would say, number go up. You mentioned that book right there. So we're gonna have a great conversation here with maybe my long lost relative, Tom Wright, who's been doing, who's an investigative journalist, gonna talk about what happened with FTX and SBF and CZ. And he's got his own podcast around that, multiple topics or multiple episodes. So you're gonna want to tune in. This is a pretty good interview, Mr. Joel Kopp. I think so. Let's let the people decide as they listen now. Unless you're living under a rock, you have heard the names Sam Bankman -Fried and Chengpeng Zhao, or CZ, of Binance. And you've heard about the fall of FTX. Well, Sam Bankman -Fried's big trial for basically making off with countless billions of dollars is coming up shortly. Scam bank man fraud, right? That's the guy. We have a guy with us today who is the co -founder of Project Brazen, a journalism -focused content studio. He's a New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer finalist. And his name is quite similar to Travis Wright's. His name is Tom Wright. We're talking, it's two T Wright's here today. There's two TWs here today. And Tom, welcome to the Bad Crypto Podcast. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, tell us, just kind of give us a little more meat on the bones of your background and how that led you to this new podcast called Crypto Kingpins. Well, I was at the Wall Street Journal for about 20 years, Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal in 2019 after writing a book called Billion Dollar Whale, which is about the one MDB scandal. That's the scandal where a bunch of money was taken out of a sovereign wealth fund in Asia and used to make films like The Wolf of Wall Street and for all these guys to party on this fraudster Joe Lowe's tab. Clearly people like Paris Hilton and big actors, Leonardo DiCaprio and others. And then the guy who I wrote the book with, Bradley Hope and I quit the journal and set up this company Project Brazen. And what we do is we make podcasts and we also write magazine articles and other things, books as well, that we use as the basis for adaptation into TV and film. So that's Project Brazen, that's a business. And our latest podcast is Crypto Kingpins, which we've done in conjunction with USG Audio, which is Universal's audio. And that just started rolling out last week and the episodes are running weekly on Tuesdays. And it's about the huge rivalry between Changpeng Zhao, who you mentioned of Binance, and Sam Bankman -Fried of FTX and how that rivalry played out and how it led to the downfall of SPF. And we went based on exclusive access to CZ himself. There was some interesting stuff that was going down with that. A lot of personality clashes and then just like, oh, CZ is gonna come in and save the day. Oh no, he's not. Because it looked like he got some, he was feeling the heebie jeebies. He was looking at some stuff and going, whoa, we better get rid of all of my FTT because this ain't working. And so this is great. We're talking about some of the big crypto frauds, right? That's what you've done. You know, actually, since Joel and I have not done this show as regularly here in the last couple of weeks because of travel, a documentary just came out about Ruja Igniktova called The Crypto Queen on 2BTV and I was in there talking about that. So I'm featured on that. So it's like, it seems like there's a lot of stuff going on right now and I'll put that in the show notes if you guys wanna watch The Crypto Queen documentary. But this is fascinating. There's so many bad actors in crypto. Hopefully we can get past this and only the good people remain in crypto. The fraudsters are kicked out. Hopefully all the good people haven't left and are chasing dreams in AI now. So hopefully there's still some good foundations here in the crypto space. Well, we got into this podcast because I'm based here in Singapore and for a long time, CZ was based here. And what he was hoping to do was get a license from the Singapore government. I mean, a lot of people were here. Do Kwan of Terra Luna was here. Carl Davis was here. The Three Arrows guys were here. Their yacht Much Wow that they bought, I think was supposed to be in the marina here but never made it, as you said. A lot of people getting washed out of the system. But anyway, I got to know CZ because he was living down in this area called Sentosa Cove which is a lot like Miami. You know, it's big mansions with a marina. And at that time, now what a lot of people do know about is what happened last November, which you just alluded to, which is when CZ decided to sell his tokens and that caused a world of pain for Sam Bagman Frieden FTX, right? But what people don't really understand is the degree to which CZ and SPF had interacted over time. People know that the Binance was one of the big first investors in FTX back in the early days. They took a 25 million stake for 20 % of FTX. But Sam really looked up to CZ. Obviously CZ and Binance go back to 2017 and Sam didn't set up FTX until a couple years later. And we show in the podcast how CZ first met Sam when Sam invited him to this party in an aquarium in Singapore in 2019. And he was just a trader, one of many traders. I don't think he was a VIP trader, but just a trader nonetheless on Binance. And so that's really when the story begins and that's how we start the podcast by showing that relationship and how it evolves and then all of the stuff in between that initial meeting and then what happened last November, which was what we call the kill shot. So he kind of went from being a trader to becoming a traitor. We're gonna talk about some of that political stuff that he did down the road, which was really crazy. It's like you look at some of this stuff, Joel, and I go, man, anybody else was doing some of this stuff where they hadn't have donated so much money to the political parties? There's no way that you get taken out of a Bahamas prison and then immediately brought to America and then released on a first class flight to fly back home to go be with your mommy and daddy if you've done this amount of fraud. So there's so many different nuances to this story. I can't wait to get into this with you. Well, the most amazing thing about that is he was released on a $250 million bail, which was I think the biggest ever bail in American pretrial history. But was it really? It wasn't really like they didn't actually pay that. No, their house is not worth $250 million. I didn't quite understand that it was backed by their house, but that was the, I think they judged him a very low flight risk based on how recognizable he is. Yeah, did they think that house would be a collector's item someday or something? With a future value of this home, yeah, that's crazy. So do this for us. When everything went down, kind of set the stage for what happened that day when this story broke. How much money were we actually talking about? How many people were impacted? And just how far did the ripples extend? Well, I think it's November the 2nd is when this CoinDesk article comes out, which basically says, look, the Alameda, which was Sam's hedge fund, FTX's hedge fund, its financial situation isn't all that it looks like because somebody inside the company leaked these documents to CoinDesk. And they showed that they were heavily reliant on FTT tokens, which were basically a cryptocurrency that Sam had made up and bought himself to prop up the value. And then if you took those out, they were about almost a half of the total assets of the hedge fund. And so at that point, CZ is pacing in his penthouse in Dubai where he left Singapore where I got to know him and he moved to Dubai.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from UNCHAINED: Why All 10,000 OnChainMonkey NFTs Will Move From Ethereum to Bitcoin
"Arbitrum's leading Layer 2 scaling solutions can provide you with lightning -fast transactions at a fraction of the cost, all while ensuring security rooted on Ethereum. Arbitrum's newest addition, Orbit, enables you to build your own tailor -made Layer 3. Visit arbitrum .io today. Buy, trade, and spend crypto on the crypto .com app. New users can enjoy zero credit card fees on crypto purchases in the first seven days. Download the crypto .com app and get $25 with the code LORA. Link in the description. Today's guests are Danny Yang and Bill Tai, co -founders of Medigood and creators of Onchain Monkey. Welcome, Danny and Bill. Hey, Laura. Great to be here. Thank you, Laura. Honored to be here again. Bill, you were my third guest, if I remember correctly. So… Yeah. Pleasure to have you back. You're the star of the industry, kind of, at the Necker Blockchain Summit. I know. I can't believe that was over seven years ago now. But anyway, so part of the reason that I brought you two here was to discuss some recent issues, you could call them, in the Bitcoin ordinals world. And it affects you as creators. But first, why don't we give everybody the backdrop of what you've been doing. And we'll start with your backgrounds pre -Medigood. So, Danny, would you like to start? Yeah. So, I'm Danny Yang, pre -Medigood. I started a Stanford Bitcoin meetup back in 2013. That's when I met Bill, actually. So that's how he connected. True OG. Yeah. Early days of Bitcoin when we were all very, I guess, excited by what we could do. And I had the sky's the limit. And Bitcoin was the center of attention for everything. It was really the only thing. And I started a cryptocurrency exchange in Taiwan called MyCoin, that's doing well today too. And then a couple of years later, I started a blockchain analytics company called Bloxier that was then sold a few years after that. And Bill also was the first investor in both of my, those two Bitcoin and crypto companies that have been busy in this space. And just excited to see what's happening today too, what we're going to talk about because of the new happenings for Bitcoin in particular. And Bill? Yeah. And Laura, I think obviously you've known me for quite a while, but I somehow was able to see some kind of interesting future for Bitcoin back in 2010. That led me to doing some work on a bunch of different things. Some of the more notable companies that came out of the industry at that time were Bitfury, of course, where I put together the funding for their first major ASIC chip. Still chairman of the board of Hut 8 Mining, which we spun out of Bitfury, it used to be our Canadian operation and had funded a bunch of interesting projects like AirSwap with Joe Lubin and Mike Novogratz and Power Ledger and some other things. But Danny, having been the founder of the Stanford Bitcoin Meetup Group, and Laura, you will remember even back on Necker Island, what I wanted to do was create something like the Homebrew Computer Club for this segment. And Danny had already done that. So as I was attending the Stanford Bitcoin Meetup Groups, young startups like Zappo or BitGo or Coinbase or whoever would come and present at his meetup. And I just identified Danny as a node with a lot of talent given his PhD in computer science at Stanford and every question that I had that was technical, he could answer. And so one day I walk up to him and I said, hey, if you ever start a company, I'm writing a check. And that became the first company he mentioned. And I funded it along with some real OGs like Charlie Lee, Bobby Lee, Jed McCaleb, people like that. And then that turned into another funding for Blockseer. Both of those companies have been successful. And third time around, you know, I was like, Danny, let's do this one together. So I wrote a check and we put together Medigood.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL: Inside Sam Bankman-Fried's Trial Defense Episode 2
"The most important thing is, you know, just because a lawyer tells you something is okay, that's not a defense. Geez, he said it. He seemed to think everything was okay. Yeah. That's not an advice of counsel defense that negates criminal intent, that's an excuse. In part two of our series digging into SPF's defense, we dissect Sam Bankman -freed's claims that his lawyers played a larger role in FTX's collapse than he did. It might sound like a stretch, but there is legal precedent behind it. SPF also says he was pressured by counsel into turning FTX over to their hand -picked successor. In this episode, we sit down with Mark Litt, the prosecutor who took down Bernie Madoff, Travis Kling, a fund manager who still has millions of dollars tied up in FTX, and Mr. Purple, a pseudonymous crypto investor and fellow FTX victim, to see if there's any legitimacy to SPF's claims that lawyers who were there for FTX's rise are now primed to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees. Money that SPF says should be used to pay back depositors. I'm Zach Ousman, you're listening to the SPF Defense Podcast, a coinage investigation. SPF's position is that FTX would have made it through the crisis if not for his lawyers, which conspired to steal the company out from under him, cover up their role in its operation, and siphon hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees from the bankrupt estate. SPF even names one lawyer in particular, Ryan Miller, who joined FTX US from the law firm's Sullivan and Cromwell, and planned on returning there after his time at the exchange, according to an affidavit from FTX's top lawyer. SPF says Miller conspired to hand the company over to Solcrom and their chosen agent, John J. Ray III, who also handled Enron's bankruptcy. And whether you come to believe Sam's claims or not, Solcrom and Ray clearly won. If FTX's bankruptcy process takes the two years like Enron's did, it's on track to cost over $800 million. And Solcrom's relationship has already been called out by more than just Sam. It's even been raised as an issue by senators and 18 state regulators. But could SPF be right about Ryan Miller and Solcrom's nefarious motives? And even if they did do some evil lawyer shit, will it be enough to get SPF off the hook? To fully understand this defense strategy, it helps to start with SPF's story behind his attempt to plug the now notorious multi -billion dollar hole at FTX back in November's collapse. As the story goes, he was preparing to handle the liquidity crisis by courting Nomura, Japan's largest investment group, and the crypto company Tron, who had pledged billions of dollars in liquidity to FTX, while other investors were still deliberating. SPF had said he planned on giving away most of his equity in the company, and therefore most of his wealth, in an attempt to make customers of FTX International whole. SPF has always maintained that FTX US remained completely solvent right up to the end. But SPF says his rescue plan failed because Ryan Miller and Solcrom agents at his company, including Tim Wilson, another FTX lawyer with a past at Solcrom, pressed him repeatedly to sign the company's over to John Ray in bankruptcy, and even implied that if he refused, they could have him arrested and quote, change control in order to authorize a proper insolvency process. SPF said he changed his mind within 10 minutes of signing, but it was already too late. And he says his lawyers reneged on their promises to let him select a board share, blocking him out of his accounts and refusing to communicate further. As soon as John Ray was installed, he chose Sullivan and Cromwell as FTX's primary counsel. To be fair, SPF actually has a point when it comes to the sketchiness of that process. Even outside legal observers have taken issue with Solcrom being tapped as the firm to manage FTX's bankruptcy. In fact, a bipartisan group of two Republican and two Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter to the judge overseeing the case, urging him to appoint an independent examiner rather than Solcrom, which worked with FTX and Alameda before the collapse, bringing in $8 .5 million in legal fees. The senators argued, quote, given their longstanding legal work for FTX, they may well bear a measure of responsibility for the damage wrecked on the company's victims. Regulators from 18 states echoed that issue, saying appointing an independent examiner wasn't just right, it was also legally required. But back in February, the judge in the case threw out those requests, saying it would cost too much money, though we should note FTX's lawyers also charged the bankruptcy estate $21 ,000 over 20 days just for meals, which apparently isn't too much to spend. And if you ask the victims in FTX's collapse, this is all pretty important, considering it's their deposits and claims at stake. And if their money is being drained in broad daylight by a law firm who also helped FTX pre -collapse, that might not sit any better than Sam spending it. We talked to Travis Kling, who lost his crypto investment fund in FTX's collapse, and asked him to weigh in. If you ask me at the very beginning, do you think this is going to be one of the most expensive bankruptcies in U .S. history, I would say yes. Yes. You know, it's enormous. There's a ton of fraud, and it's magic internet money. Trying to kind of Monday morning quarterback this and say, oh, Sam would have been better off not filing for bankruptcy. That's not something that I feel very strongly about. And Solkrom's outrageous fees aren't the only reason for concern. SPF also claims Solkrom gave a clean bill of health to Alameda's trading accounts on FTX in a report with the CFTC just months before the collapse. Furthermore, in his affidavit, Dan Friedberg, who was both FTX's chief compliance officer and Alameda's general counsel until he stepped down following the crisis, says Miller only included FTX U .S. in the bankruptcy proceedings precisely because Miller knew it had the funds to pay Solkrom for its work, which backs up what SPF said about how FTX U .S. was never insolvent. So this may be a case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Solkrom denies any of this, of course. The firm's top bankruptcy lawyer, Andrew Dietrich, who told other lawyers FTX was rock solid in an email just days before the bankruptcy, said he only spoke with SPF twice. The FTX debtors also countersued Friedberg to seek damages, alleging he breached his fiduciary duties. We can't say much more beyond that because Solkrom never got back to us when we asked for a comment. But one thing is clear, what guidance Sam's lawyers gave him, and particularly what they knew about the business, will become integral to SPF's defense at trial. Even if you asked Ryan Miller before the collapse, the laws are pretty simple for any business, crypto or otherwise. Here he is explaining that concept at an MIT Bitcoin meetup in July 2022. Don't do fraud, don't lie, don't release materially incomplete statements. That then creates a basis for liability, liability from a criminal authority, be it a Department of Justice or liability in a civil context. Yet according to Caroline Allison's guilty plea, they had trouble following even those rules. In her sworn testimony, she said, quote, I agreed with Mr. Bankman, Fried and others to provide materially misleading financial statements to Alameda's lenders. Could Miller or any of SPF's lawyers, for that matter, be one of those others? Sam's other allegation that Miller contacted the DOJ to turn over documents that led to his indictment days before SPF linked, which controlled the company, makes Miller start to look even sketchier. But even if Solkrom really does have a true conflict of interest, could SPF really use their role in everything that happened to get an acquittal? Given that I'm not a lawyer, we pose that defense to Mark Litt, the prosecutor who took down Bernie Madoff. Can a lawyer be a criminal? Sure. Yeah. Can a lawyer be part of a criminal enterprise? Yes. Do they often go down? I don't know a lot of reputable lawyers who are going to bless lying to investors, lying to banks, intermingling funds, lying to auditors. If he happened to find one who knew all that was going on and blessed it, then maybe as a defense. But I tend to doubt it. You can't think of it as, well, oh, well, you know, Sullivan and Cromwell was involved or a former Sullivan and Cromwell lawyer was involved and, geez, he said he seemed to think everything was okay. That's not an advice of counsel defense that negates criminal intent. That's an excuse masquerading as an advice of counsel defense. Advice of counsel defense is very specific and narrow. You need competent counsel and they'll stipulate that any lawyer at Sullivan and Cromwell is competent in the subject area that they're being asked about. Second, every material fact has to be disclosed to them. Third, you have to seek their legal opinion on a subject. And fourth, you have to follow the advice. So if the defense can make out those elements, I would think they'd be able to present the defense and it might have a shot of winning. So Sol Cromwell might not be saints, but as we covered last time in episode one, SPF isn't exactly facing a trial over FTX's collapse. He's charged with a lot of things that led up to FTX's collapse. Arguably, what's alleged to have happened post -collapse matters more for FTX's victims. And if you ask them, the reviews are mixed on exactly what's played out thus far. If I'm going to judge Sullivan and Cromwell and John J. Wray from my purview of being someone who's seen these things in bankruptcy, I would give them a very low grade because you can say, oh, this is crypto, it's difficult, but it's not that difficult. And sometimes the devil you know is better than the one you don't. I will say that these debtors are extremely bad in my professional experience. That was Mr. Purple, a pseudonymous crypto investor who has experience following bankruptcy proceedings. For former FTX customers like him, Sam's spat with Sol Cromwell matters very little, as long as the firm can help achieve a meaningful recovery of their funds. And despite the fact that legal fees are stacking up, the bidding market for FTX customer claims is showing a growing hope they might not be stuck with pennies on the dollar. Another way to frame it is, you know, there's a claims market for FTX claims, trade claims, trade actively. There's a little niche of traditional finance that all they do is go around to different bankruptcies in all industries and they buy claims. This is this is a, you know, a subsector of of investing. And this is a huge bankruptcy. So this has been a very big liquid market. Right. And the first, you know, we're a very big creditor in this. So, you know, I'm in active conversations in this claims market. First, first bid we saw was in Thanksgiving and it was like six cents. That was the first bid. Six cents on the dollar, six cents on the dollar. And now now it's like 40 cents. And so it's gone from six to 40 cents. So then I'm like, OK, well, that feels quite good. Yeah. And OK, these guys are charging a load of money for that, but they have taken us from six cents to 40 cents. With both FTX's bankruptcy case and SPF's criminal case unfolding in real time, one may very well impact the other. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the CFTC to share the report. Sam says Solkrom filed to support that FTX's structure was above board. The agency denied our request, saying it's unable to share documents that, quote, could interfere with the conduct of federal agency law enforcement activities. And of course, as long as Solkrom selected John Ray is running the show at FTX, it's unexpected anything comes out to support SPF's case. FTX, too, didn't get back for comment. So unless SPF has direct evidence of lawyers being aware of FTX's shaky financials and helping for years to cover it up, it's hard to judge SPF's advice of counsel defense or the idea that he thought he was in the clear leading up to the collapse just because his lawyers said it was fine. As Litt said, that sounds more like an excuse than a defense. As a community owned Web3 media outlet, Coinage will be breaking down everything we've learned together through this series and curating still unanswered questions at Coinage .Media. I'm Zach Guzman. This was the second part of Coinage's investigative series covering SPF's defense. Stay tuned for episode three, where we'll explore another pillar. Of SPF's defense. You've been listening to the SPF Defense on the Coindesk Podcast Network. Follow the Coindesk Podcast Network to get all the Coindesk shows in one place and head over to Coindesk .com for all the Sam Bankman freed coverage. Thanks for listening.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL: 09/26 UPDATE
"Welcome to The SBF Trial, a Coindesk Podcast Network newsletter bringing you daily insights from inside the courtroom where Sam Bankman -Fried will try to stay out of prison. Follow the Coindesk Podcast Network to get the audio each morning with content from the Coindesk regulation team and voiced by Wondercraft AI. Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman -Fried has traded his palatial Bahamas bunker for a bunk bed as he transitions from lux to lockup. Bankman -Fried is staying at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, one of the nation's most notorious correctional facilities. Conditions at the jailhouse where Bankman -Fried has resided for six weeks since losing his bail are a far cry from the former billionaire's old Caribbean stomping grounds. The internet is slow, the living quarters dirty and the cafeteria offering slim, his lawyers have argued. He is subsisting on bread and water, sometimes peanut butter, the defense told a federal judge last month. Former residents of the famous facility and their lawyers, however, have said there's much more to tell about the notorious lockup. They've likened conditions at the jailhouse to those faced by prisoners of war and Hannibal Lecter in the horror movie The Silence of the Lambs. But what's MDC really like on the inside? Here's what we know about the infamous detention center. MDC Brooklyn is a large prison complex encompassing two buildings and housing more than 1 ,600 male and female prisoners, many of whom still await trial. As a mixed security facility, the MDC houses inmates with a variety of criminal histories, including terrorism, organized crime and drug smuggling. A report from the Bureau of Prisons shows current inmates include Juan Orlando Hernandez, a former president of Honduras, who has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges, and Guo Wengui, a Chinese businessman who has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges. Others who have previously served short stints at the jailhouse include Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and pharma bro Martin Shkreli. Bankman -Fried likely has a rigid schedule at MDC. Inmates wake up at 6 a .m. and must make their beds, mop the floor and tend to their trash. An orientation handbook from the facility shows. From there, inmates like Bankman -Fried might go to work around the facility, serving as prep cooks in the jail's kitchen, providing janitorial services throughout the complex, or assisting at the facility's maintenance shop. At 11 a .m., they eat lunch. Dinner is served at 4 p .m. Meals are supposed to consist of a meat such as turkey, a starch like rice and a vegetable or fruit, but prisoners are actually served cold cuts, sandwich bread, moldy pound cakes and other unidentifiable foods from the kitchen, according to a petition on Change .org. If Bankman -Fried, a vegan, doesn't like what's offered at the cafeteria, he can use his $150 weekly commissary allowance to buy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, worth $3 .65 each. He can buy up to two of those per day, according to the complex's rules. In between meals and work, inmates are allowed breaks. However, there's no prison yard for recreational activities at MDC. Instead, Bankman -Fried will have to hang out with his fellow inmates in indoor community rooms, where they can play cards, talk and watch television. Bankman -Fried can also take showers during his downtime in one of five separate individual shower stalls, according to former inmates. However, lines to use the showers are often long. At the end of each day, Bankman -Fried may retire to a communal dorm with rows of bunk beds, according to former prisoners' accounts. However, it's also possible he has been put in protective custody and has his own cell. Either way, getting some shut eye may not be easy. Fluorescent lights keep the dorm and other rooms across the jailhouse semi -lit 24 hours a day. Inmates' writings show. In addition, inmates can often be heard shouting across cell blocks at all hours of the night, former prisoners have said. Uncomfortable heat and cold is another potential issue Bankman -Fried may encounter during his stay at MDC Bankman -Fried in Brooklyn. According to several local news reports, many parts of the MDC lack heating and air conditioning units are sparse throughout much of the facility. Want to follow along? Sign up for Coindesk's new daily newsletter, The SBF Trial, bringing you insights from the courthouse and around the case. You can get the podcast each day right here by following the Coindesk Podcast Network. Thanks for listening.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from MARKETS DAILY: Crypto Unplugged | Analyzing Market Headwinds and Tailwinds
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. This is Markets Daily from Coindesk. My name is Noelle Acheson, Coindesk collaborator and author of the Crypto is Macro Now newsletter on Substack. Since I'm out at a conference today, this episode has a different format than usual. Rather than talk about market performances, I'm going to give my thoughts on the main tailwinds and headwinds currently affecting crypto markets. And just a reminder, Coindesk is a news source and does not give investment advice. We all know that markets have been range -bound recently. For many, this is surprising given the potential upside of a spot Bitcoin ETF approval. For others, the resilience is unexpected given the downward pressure from higher interest rates. Both are strong forces and there are others in the mix as well. What we are seeing is positive and negative trends largely cancelling each other out amid a general lack of interest from new large investors. So, let's step back and take a look at some of the main positive and negative narratives and then I'll talk about how they are affecting new investor interest. Starting with the tailwinds. The most significant is the potential boost in demand that would come from approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF. Why would demand increase? Because an ETF that trades on US markets is a convenient wrapper for Bitcoin exposure. It makes it much easier for retail investors to add a small Bitcoin position for diversification purposes and many institutions can only invest in listed products. With an ETF, they would now be able to diversify their funds or even take a speculative position. The eventual demand for a spot Bitcoin ETF is likely to be greater than for the Bitcoin futures ETF. It's a better product in that it involves less rollover costs and therefore should deliver better alignment with the Bitcoin price. How likely is approval? Bloomberg analysts have put the probability at 75 % by the end of this year. 95 % by the end of 2024. So, not a sure thing, but pretty likely. I think it will happen and it is not yet anywhere near priced in. Other tailwinds. Activity on the Bitcoin blockchain is picking up. The 30 -day moving average of the number of active Bitcoin addresses on any given day is more than 20 % up from the local low in May, almost 15 % up since the beginning of the year, according to data from Glassnode. That suggests the network is broadening. Adoption of the Lightning network is likely to start picking up as Coinbase moves to adopt its fast and cheap Bitcoin transfer technology. This could end up boosting demand for Bitcoin as greater liquidity on Lightning brings in more users. And long -term holders of Bitcoin are still accumulating. Yesterday MicroStrategy revealed in a filing the purchase of a further 5 ,445 Bitcoin. Back in August, the company had suggested it was ready to accumulate even more. For Ethereum, approval of the first listed Ether futures ETF is likely within the next few months, with a probability of 95%, according to Bloomberg analysts. Again, not a sure thing, but the odds are looking good. Although it is a futures product, it could boost demand for spot Ether, much like the Bitcoin futures ETF launch in October 2021 that propelled the Bitcoin price up to $69 ,000. And finally, sticking with Ethereum, the network's next major upgrade is expected early next year or possibly sooner. This will improve Ethereum's scalability, potentially increasing its use and therefore also demand for Ether. Now this is far from a comprehensive list. There are many more factors supporting the crypto market, but in the interest of time, let's move on to the headwinds. One of the more significant headwinds is the regulatory cloud in the US, specifically the lack of clarity on what is and isn't a security. The general fear that the SEC or the CFTC will launch actions against a project is dampening activity, and the potential impact on the price of tokens that become the subject of regulatory scrutiny and or find themselves delisted out of necessity or caution. That's most likely enough to keep investors away from smaller tokens. It even impacts Ether, the second largest crypto asset by market cap. Ether's transaction volume is not totally dependent on DeFi activity, but they are related, and DeFi activity is down. According to data source DeFi Llama, total value locked on Ethereum -based DeFi applications is at its lowest level since January 2021. DeFi interest is dampened at the moment in part because of regulatory uncertainty and in part because of some recent high -profile exploits that have reminded investors how new this all is and how relatively untested the different attack vectors are. Another big headwind is the outlook for US interest rates. I say US interest rates because they are one of the key levers for global liquidity. This lever acts through the cost of lending and also through the price of US government bonds, the assets most used as collateral for short -term financing. US interest rates also act on the US dollar. Higher rates generally means that the US dollar will be heading up, and this influences liquidity in any country that imports goods priced in dollars or that has issued dollar -denominated debt. There are even more channels than this, but the bottom line is that higher US interest rates do tend to dry up global liquidity. This affects the flow of funds into higher volatility low -income assets such as tech stocks and crypto assets. Suffice to say that expectations are settling in that US rates will be higher for longer, and macro investors are likely to be more inclined to take advantage of the high returns available in safe bonds, especially when fears of an impending recession are gathering momentum. It's a fascinating time in crypto markets, even though the price movements are not particularly interesting. Bitcoin and Ether historical volatility are at their lowest point since January, which itself was a multi -year low. It's fascinating because I don't remember a time when you have this tug of war between such compelling narratives. The market is telling us that the headwinds and tailwinds are more or less evenly balanced. There are days when optimism is winning and we see clear signs of a pickup and accumulation activity. There are days when price movements bring out more sell orders. How long will this continue? That's hard to answer, since a bad economic read, a bank in distress, further climbs in the oil price, or a spike in geopolitical tension – all those things could happen at any time and they could send interest rate expectations hurtling up or down. We could also get some more unwelcome moves from regulators at any time. On the other hand, we could get some positive price moving news in the form of a new fund taking a crypto asset position, another nation state supporting Bitcoin mining, or of course a Bitcoin spot or Ether futures ETF approval. Any of these, or something I haven't thought of yet, could drop at any time. The uncertainty is dampening price movements while contributing a veil of suspense. Meanwhile, progress on network applications across the world is changing. The headwinds facing the crypto market at the moment will eventually dissipate, perhaps to be replaced by others. The tailwinds will change too, and new ones will emerge. It's up to investors to decide for themselves which type of wind will be more powerful in the months to come. And that's it for this week's show. If you liked the show, please leave us a five -star rating on whatever platform you're listening to us on. Markets Daily is produced and edited by Michelle Musso, with executive production by Jared Schwartz. I'm Noah Lacheson for Coindesk. We're back tomorrow with more market news and insights.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
A highlight from Crypto Unplugged | Analyzing Market Headwinds and Tailwinds
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. This is Markets Daily from Coindesk. My name is Noelle Acheson, Coindesk collaborator and author of the Crypto is Macro Now newsletter on Substack. Since I'm out at a conference today, this episode has a different format than usual. Rather than talk about market performances, I'm going to give my thoughts on the main tailwinds and headwinds currently affecting crypto markets. And just a reminder, Coindesk is a news source and does not give investment advice. We all know that markets have been range -bound recently. For many, this is surprising given the potential upside of a spot Bitcoin ETF approval. For others, the resilience is unexpected given the downward pressure from higher interest rates. Both are strong forces and there are others in the mix as well. What we are seeing is positive and negative trends largely cancelling each other out amid a general lack of interest from new large investors. So, let's step back and take a look at some of the main positive and negative narratives and then I'll talk about how they are affecting new investor interest. Starting with the tailwinds. The most significant is the potential boost in demand that would come from approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF. Why would demand increase? Because an ETF that trades on US markets is a convenient wrapper for Bitcoin exposure. It makes it much easier for retail investors to add a small Bitcoin position for diversification purposes and many institutions can only invest in listed products. With an ETF, they would now be able to diversify their funds or even take a speculative position. The eventual demand for a spot Bitcoin ETF is likely to be greater than for the Bitcoin futures ETF. It's a better product in that it involves less rollover costs and therefore should deliver better alignment with the Bitcoin price. How likely is approval? Bloomberg analysts have put the probability at 75 % by the end of this year. 95 % by the end of 2024. So, not a sure thing, but pretty likely. I think it will happen and it is not yet anywhere near priced in. Other tailwinds. Activity on the Bitcoin blockchain is picking up. The 30 -day moving average of the number of active Bitcoin addresses on any given day is more than 20 % up from the local low in May, almost 15 % up since the beginning of the year, according to data from Glassnode. That suggests the network is broadening. Adoption of the Lightning network is likely to start picking up as Coinbase moves to adopt its fast and cheap Bitcoin transfer technology. This could end up boosting demand for Bitcoin as greater liquidity on Lightning brings in more users. And long -term holders of Bitcoin are still accumulating. Yesterday MicroStrategy revealed in a filing the purchase of a further 5 ,445 Bitcoin. Back in August, the company had suggested it was ready to accumulate even more. For Ethereum, approval of the first listed Ether futures ETF is likely within the next few months, with a probability of 95%, according to Bloomberg analysts. Again, not a sure thing, but the odds are looking good. Although it is a futures product, it could boost demand for spot Ether, much like the Bitcoin futures ETF launch in October 2021 that propelled the Bitcoin price up to $69 ,000. And finally, sticking with Ethereum, the network's next major upgrade is expected early next year or possibly sooner. This will improve Ethereum's scalability, potentially increasing its use and therefore also demand for Ether. Now this is far from a comprehensive list. There are many more factors supporting the crypto market, but in the interest of time, let's move on to the headwinds. One of the more significant headwinds is the regulatory cloud in the US, specifically the lack of clarity on what is and isn't a security. The general fear that the SEC or the CFTC will launch actions against a project is dampening activity, and the potential impact on the price of tokens that become the subject of regulatory scrutiny and or find themselves delisted out of necessity or caution. That's most likely enough to keep investors away from smaller tokens. It even impacts Ether, the second largest crypto asset by market cap. Ether's transaction volume is not totally dependent on DeFi activity, but they are related, and DeFi activity is down. According to data source DeFi Llama, total value locked on Ethereum -based DeFi applications is at its lowest level since January 2021. DeFi interest is dampened at the moment in part because of regulatory uncertainty and in part because of some recent high -profile exploits that have reminded investors how new this all is and how relatively untested the different attack vectors are. Another big headwind is the outlook for US interest rates. I say US interest rates because they are one of the key levers for global liquidity. This lever acts through the cost of lending and also through the price of US government bonds, the assets most used as collateral for short -term financing. US interest rates also act on the US dollar. Higher rates generally means that the US dollar will be heading up, and this influences liquidity in any country that imports goods priced in dollars or that has issued dollar -denominated debt. There are even more channels than this, but the bottom line is that higher US interest rates do tend to dry up global liquidity. This affects the flow of funds into higher volatility low -income assets such as tech stocks and crypto assets. Suffice to say that expectations are settling in that US rates will be higher for longer, and macro investors are likely to be more inclined to take advantage of the high returns available in safe bonds, especially when fears of an impending recession are gathering momentum. It's a fascinating time in crypto markets, even though the price movements are not particularly interesting. Bitcoin and Ether historical volatility are at their lowest point since January, which itself was a multi -year low. It's fascinating because I don't remember a time when you have this tug of war between such compelling narratives. The market is telling us that the headwinds and tailwinds are more or less evenly balanced. There are days when optimism is winning and we see clear signs of a pickup and accumulation activity. There are days when price movements bring out more sell orders. How long will this continue? That's hard to answer, since a bad economic read, a bank in distress, further climbs in the oil price, or a spike in geopolitical tension – all those things could happen at any time and they could send interest rate expectations hurtling up or down. We could also get some more unwelcome moves from regulators at any time. On the other hand, we could get some positive price moving news in the form of a new fund taking a crypto asset position, another nation state supporting Bitcoin mining, or of course a Bitcoin spot or Ether futures ETF approval. Any of these, or something I haven't thought of yet, could drop at any time. The uncertainty is dampening price movements while contributing a veil of suspense. Meanwhile, progress on network applications across the world is changing. The headwinds facing the crypto market at the moment will eventually dissipate, perhaps to be replaced by others. The tailwinds will change too, and new ones will emerge. It's up to investors to decide for themselves which type of wind will be more powerful in the months to come. And that's it for this week's show. If you liked the show, please leave us a five -star rating on whatever platform you're listening to us on. Markets Daily is produced and edited by Michelle Musso, with executive production by Jared Schwartz. I'm Noah Lacheson for Coindesk. We're back tomorrow with more market news and insights.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SPECIAL REPORT: Inside Sam Bankman-Fried's Trial Defense Episode 1
"FTX collapsed this week from crypto king to criminal suspects. The less generous view is that you have committed a massive fraud. I mean, I'm deeply sorry. Saying sorry means nothing. I made a series of mistakes that seem they don't just seem dumb. They seem like the type of mistakes I could see myself having ridiculed someone else for having me. I'm Zach Guzman. You're listening to the SPF defense podcast, an exclusive coinage investigation. I've met SPF in person three times. Once when he just bought the naming rights to the Miami Heat's arena, once in the Bahamas at their huge extravaganza with Tom Brady, and once at his parents' home under house arrest, ankle bracelet included. In fact, I was the last journalist to interview him before he was sent to prison for breaking his bail agreement. I showed up to his parents' house near Stanford's campus on a Sunday and was immediately greeted by a security guard who informed me I'd have to leave all my electronics with him outside. I had interviewed Sam plenty of times, just never after being wandered down with a metal detector, and certainly never while he was under house arrest. Three hours later, Sam agreed to answer questions from the coinage community and surprisingly handed me about 50 pages of documents outlining his defense strategy, and exactly what he says led to FTX's downfall. After reading it through and realizing neither myself nor anyone at coinage is an attorney, we brought in the best person we could think of, Mark Litt, the government's lead prosecutor in his case against Bernie Madoff. This is part one of our series investigating SBF's upcoming defense. In this episode, Mark Litt provides his unique insight on the unanswered questions surrounding the relationship between SBF and Caroline Ellison, his girlfriend turned cooperating witness. You were one of the former lead prosecutors on the Bernie Madoff case, one of the biggest Ponzi schemes, not the largest Ponzi scheme in American history. When you look at that case and compare it and contrast it with what's being alleged that Sam Bankman Fried did to St. Alameda and FTX, what do you see? Here, the government is alleging among other things that promises were made to investors and promises were broken, and the promises were material. So there's a couple of charges relating to derivatives, trading fraud and conspiracy to commit that fraud. There's one I think for conspiracy to commit securities fraud and the substantive count of securities fraud. There is money laundering attached to those. So it's not a Ponzi scheme, but it's fraud. It just happens to be in a wrapper of cryptocurrency, which is novel. Well, just start on what you would do if you were Sam's attorney. Well, what I would have been doing and what I would be doing right now is developing whatever I can to cross the cooperators who are going to be critical to the prosecution. When you look at what's happening here and the fact as this goes to trial that you're going to need to convince 12 jurors that a crime was carried out, how does that element of cryptocurrency or the fact that maybe it's not as simple as an outright Ponzi scheme, what does that do to the prosecution side, defense side when you think about what's going to happen in this case? I don't think it changes it all that much. In a trial involving an equity stock or a bond, you may have to do some explanation to the jury about some of the terminology they're going to hear about. Cryptocurrency is newer. You might have to do a little bit more of that to provide context. But the case isn't about cryptocurrency. It's about, again, representations made and not kept. It's about taking money from one pocket and using it for purposes of another company in another pocket without the investor knowing that. That's not hard for a jury to understand. The defense may want to make it about cryptocurrency and go off on a tangent about the intricacies of trading and all of that, but it's not really relevant to the charges.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from GENC : Innovation at the Core of Marketing with Alyson Griffin, Head of Marketing at State Farm
"Gen C is the generation of the new Internet. In Gen C, the C stands for crypto, but it also stands for creators, the connected consumer and collectibles, both digital and physical with on -chain provenance. It stands for culture and characters, the ones we play in games and the companion ones that AI is building alongside us. It stands for community and digital citizenship and the new set of transparent and trustless tools being built to govern them. These are the people who were raised on a different philosophy on how they look at money, how they look at identity, how they look at privacy and how they look at the hybrid, digital and physical spaces being built all around us. And finally, how they reimagine their relationships with the communities and companies they interact with. We focus on how brands large and small are building for these audiences. Welcome to Gen C. Avery, I have to play you the new intro that I just made for Gen C. So here it goes. Edge of my seat. All right. So you might've noticed that was me not speaking English, but I am going to Portugal next week. So that was me speaking Portuguese. And how did I do that? Well, both you and I have been experimenting with, Hey, Jen's video translation software that utilizes AI to speak in multiple languages. You added an amazing piece that you put up on LinkedIn the other day. If you speaking Hindi, I don't know if you actually speak Hindi or not. Very limited. Very limited. But I just want to throw this stat out before I want to get your thoughts, which our is old friend, Mr. Beast, 50 % of the people who watch his videos don't speak English. And so what he does is hire voice actors all over the world to be the Mr. Beast in their local areas, because he knows that for him to go as global and get as many views as he needs, he has to be in language. And so what do you think about, Hey, Jen, and some of these new tools that are coming that will allow for video translation that is not only only, audio but as you and I have both been playing with, it also literally changes your mouth movements to be speaking the language that you've selected. Sam, thank you for turning me on to Hey, Jen. My first thought was that I was going to use it to connect my grandparents along because we do have a language barrier. And while I was sad to see that Telugu was not a supported language, I was like, it's okay. I'll do it in Hindi. And I sent it and they actually thought it was real because, you know, not everybody is familiar with powers of AI, especially with this sort of intonation, which is amazing. And then I started playing around with it a little bit more. And I want to call out Hey, Jen, but also 11 Labs, which is the voice translation that is powering all of this. Hey, Jen is sort of bringing that video, but 11 Labs does the audio. And we've been working on a couple of little things with 11 Labs in different capacities. I'm really impressed with what they're building. And it's critical because only 14 % of the world speaks English, yet 59 % of the world's digital content is in English. So if you're a person who doesn't speak English, much less, God forbid, is not literate, then you can't access the amazing, wonderful world of the internet that we all know today. It's a massive thing. I think it's early days. And of course, everybody rightfully so has questions on where is this data going? Who owns it? Who's storing it? Hey, Jen is an LA based company. And 11 Labs has raised from a number of investors, including Andre Sinso. We've done some diligence on them, but I think it's early days. But this technology is insanely powerful for brands, but in the immediate term for content creators. If I was a content creator, I would be using this immediately for my target languages, because it'll expand your reach so much, enable you to connect. And by the way, it's not going to be long before that's happening on demand. In real time, I mean. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I did the same thing you did. I recorded a video that I translated into French and I sent it to my friend in Paris. And I said, I've been working on my accent. What do you think? And he gets back to me and goes, oh, like, you're really nailing the language, you're really nailing the accent. Like, you've come a long way. I don't speak French. Because the intonation is like you, right? Right, exactly. It's cloning your voice. It sounds like a white person speaking Hindi. Like, there's some things that are colloquialisms that a local person would never say, but it sounds like how you would speak Hindi if you were very good at it. Yes. I will also say what was fascinating to me was Angelique Vendette, who I also sent the video to, responded and say, okay, here's the problem. It's speaking French Canadian. It's not speaking Paris French. And then I had other friends who because I had put it up on Instagram and for the one in Spanish, I had tagged Mexico and I said, can't wait to get back to CDMX. And someone tagged me and said, no, this is speaking European Spanish. This is not speaking Latin American Spanish. So I do think there is like a lot of nuance that still needs to get worked out in it. But just the fact that I could record a 48 second video that people in Paris and people in Mexico didn't recognize that it was AI at first. I thought it was fascinating. I think you hit it exactly, which is, oh, yeah, if I was a content creator, if I was a brand marketer and I was doing shorts, I think this is a perfect way just to get more reach for your content at a 30 to 90 second level, which should be labeled as AI also. Agreed. Definitely. Cross -country transparency, 100 percent. Yeah, we'll talk about that in a second. But I do think that anyone who hasn't played with the page and video translator or there, you can now do it just by uploading a photo and snippets of your voice powered by 11, as you mentioned. So you can actually create yourself saying anything without even having to record a video at this point. You could all do it by text. So it's pretty fascinating. I'm very excited for where this stuff is going, because this is the kind of use case that I think you and I look at this and we're like, this has a very tactical, tangible opportunity. And I think the stat that you just mentioned, only 14 percent speak English, but 60 percent of the content is in English is such a big business opportunity when you really think about that. So, so relevant. Let's pivot from there to a very related topic, which is I don't know if you saw this week, but TikTok has started using AI labeling and Reddit and Reddit. Right. Exactly. For TikTok, anytime you use one of the filters that utilizes AI, now it's going to be labeled as AI. They also are doing auto detection for people who are utilizing AI software and they want anyone who is utilizing AI for their content to have a label on it. I think this is a step in the right direction. I would love all news content also to be labeled like this, because there's a lot of stuff out there. I read an obituary that was driven by AI about a basketball player who had passed away and it said the basketball player is unliving. So that was the way that AI described him being dead, was that he was unliving. And so clearly there's a lot of stuff that needs to get worked out. But from a brand perspective, from a creator perspective, I think that the idea that we should know when things are being modified feels like the right thing. But do you think that affects the creator economy in any way? I think it's similar to how we do hashtag ad, like trust or transparency is key. We just need to be transparent about using these things. I've thought that for quite a while as it relates to Instagram and TikTok filtering because people get unrealistic like body images. I mean, yes, some of this happens in like magazines and photo shoots and all of that stuff it has for a long time. But I'm all about trust or transparency and the digital ecosystem. Agreed. And I also think there's a healthy respect for knowing when someone might be utilizing a tool. It's a productivity tool. It doesn't mean it has to be less entertaining. It doesn't mean it has to be less interesting. I think our enterprise brands, though, we're still at a place where like we can't just use 11 labs like at scale right now. It's not ready yet. It's like a proof of concept. This is how it could be going. And back to what we've talked about before, it's building the muscle for when this really hits scale, we're going to be ready. Correct. And in terms of just going back to Mr. Beast, who has these 13 actors that play him around the world, he said, our team is very actively looking because it's not cheap to do that. And he said, our team is very actively looking. He thought from his perspective and when their research that it's going to be still a couple of years before we actually see it being good enough where he's comfortable. What he said, which was interesting, is they've done some AB testing where they use the voice actor and then they'll use a cloning. And he said every time he does a cloning, people are calling out that something sounds wrong and it distracts them from the content in the video, which I think for someone like him is just really important to make sure it's landing. Totally, totally agree with that. Yeah. All right. Final story before we get to an amazing guest is Crossmint and MasterCard are going deeper together. So Crossmint powered this artist portal that MasterCard released a couple of months ago. It actually brought one hundred thousand people into blockchain. It was primarily based on music and that was also powered by Crossmint. And it seems that Crossmint and MasterCard are getting in bed together even more with an eye toward small business, which I thought was kind of interesting. Just the idea of easy ways when you think of utilizing your MasterCard to pay for something and then thinking about a reward system that can be on chain, that feels like it makes a lot of sense, right? I hit my 10th time at the coffee shop. I get a little NFT that says I'm a 10 timer and maybe that gets me a free coffee later. But this feels like a very natural, easy way for blockchain and brands to get together. And I want to know if you have any thoughts about that. Yeah, well, I love Rodry and the team and of course, Raja and his amazing team at MasterCard and everything that they've done in this space. So recently connected with Raja and he was like, I'm still very bullish on Web3. And one, I love him for saying that because there's so many mixed reactions right now. And it's amazing to hear leaders who continue to invest, continue to launch programs like their startup accelerator and continue to support these sort of Web3 native businesses, massive bands of what Crossmint is doing. And I think that a partnership between a payment processor and a minting tool makes a lot of sense because you're likely going to be paying maybe not thousands of dollars, but a couple bucks for some of these things. And having that super integrated is a great fit. And shout out to MasterCard for continuing to innovate in this space. I see them. I see Visa. I see the banks really continuing to lean in and identify these enterprise use cases that can make their customers both B2C and also B2B customers lives a little bit easier. Well, we have asked Raja to be on the podcast 27 times, so we're going to continue to ask until he shows up. So, Raja, if you're listening, we're coming for you. Avery, after the break, we are going to come back with Allison Griffin from State Farm, a big brain marketing thinker, so excited to hear her perspectives on marketing, on the metaverse, on Web3, on innovation in general, because she's such a great thinker on that. So we will talk to her after the break. Sounds great.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from MARKETS DAILY: Crypto Update | Bitcoin Buying and Ethers Inflation Rate
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. It's Monday, September 25th, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from Coindesk. My name is Noelle Acheson, Coindesk collaborator and author of the Crypto is Macro Now newsletter on Substack. On today's show, we're talking about notable Bitcoin buying, Ether's inflation rate, and more. So you don't miss an episode, be sure to follow the podcast on your platform of choice. And just a reminder, Coindesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. Now, a markets roundup. Bitcoin and Ether have been drifting lower over the past 24 hours, with Bitcoin down 1 .6%, as at 10am Eastern Time trading at $26 ,158. Ether is down 1 .2%, trading at $1 ,576. Today's moves notwithstanding, the underperformance of Ether so far this month is notable. In a recent episode, I talked about the ratio between the Bitcoin and the Ether price as a gauge on market sentiment. When it's climbing, Bitcoin is doing better, and when the ratio is falling, Ethereum is outperforming. Late last week, this ratio reached its highest point in over a year, and it is currently more than 25 % higher than at the time of Ethereum's move to proof of stake last September. But rather than suggest that the upgrade has not delivered value, it shows the heavy weight of market sentiment on asset prices. Since the upgrade, the market has had to contend with the implosion of FTX and other key market players, and the regulatory mood in the US has certainly chilled, suppressing Ethereum activity. And the underperformance persists even as the likelihood of approval of the first Ether futures ETF climbs. At a conference last week, a Bloomberg analyst put the chances of this vehicle being approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission at 95%. Not a sure thing yet, but those odds are pretty high. In traditional markets, US stocks look set to continue their light from Friday, which could, if this trend persists over the rest of the week, live up to the market legend of the September effect. Historical market performance shows that September is typically the worst performing month for the S &P 500. The index has been down for just over half of all Septembers since 1928. That's not a glaring majority, but it looks like this month will add to the legend. Earlier this morning, the S &P 500 and the Nasdaq were both flat to slightly down, while the Dow Jones was down over two -tenths of a percent. Crossing the Atlantic, the FTSE 100 and the German DAX were also trending lower earlier today, both down 1 .2 % on Friday's close. The Euro Stoxx 600 index was down slightly less, just over nine -tenths of a percent. Sentiment is weighed down by concerns about China's property sector, the impact of higher US interest rates, and a lot of data last week showing a contracting Eurozone economy. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei index rose almost nine -tenths of a percent, as the Bank of Japan's commitment to loose monetary policy, at least for now, is supporting investor sentiment. In China, stocks were weighed down by intensifying property sector concerns as liquidators were appointed to yet another developer and the Evergrande restructuring hit a roadblock. The Shanghai Composite closed over half a percent down on Friday. The Hang Seng got hit even harder, closing down just over 1 .8%, reaching its lowest level since November of last year. In commodities, the Brent crude benchmark was more or less steady over the weekend. This is despite an announcement today that Russia plans to ease some aspects of its diesel and gasoline export ban, partially relieving, for now anyway, a potential squeeze in those key markets. Earlier today, the benchmark was trading at just under $92 per barrel, still well above where it was a year ago, but down from its recent peak of over $95. The gold price was also stable over the weekend, despite continued US dollar strength. Earlier today, it was trading at $1 ,924 per ounce.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
A highlight from Crypto Update | Bitcoin Buying and Ethers Inflation Rate
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. It's Monday, September 25th, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from Coindesk. My name is Noelle Acheson, Coindesk collaborator and author of the Crypto is Macro Now newsletter on Substack. On today's show, we're talking about notable Bitcoin buying, Ether's inflation rate, and more. So you don't miss an episode, be sure to follow the podcast on your platform of choice. And just a reminder, Coindesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. Now, a markets roundup. Bitcoin and Ether have been drifting lower over the past 24 hours, with Bitcoin down 1 .6%, as at 10am Eastern Time trading at $26 ,158. Ether is down 1 .2%, trading at $1 ,576. Today's moves notwithstanding, the underperformance of Ether so far this month is notable. In a recent episode, I talked about the ratio between the Bitcoin and the Ether price as a gauge on market sentiment. When it's climbing, Bitcoin is doing better, and when the ratio is falling, Ethereum is outperforming. Late last week, this ratio reached its highest point in over a year, and it is currently more than 25 % higher than at the time of Ethereum's move to proof of stake last September. But rather than suggest that the upgrade has not delivered value, it shows the heavy weight of market sentiment on asset prices. Since the upgrade, the market has had to contend with the implosion of FTX and other key market players, and the regulatory mood in the US has certainly chilled, suppressing Ethereum activity. And the underperformance persists even as the likelihood of approval of the first Ether futures ETF climbs. At a conference last week, a Bloomberg analyst put the chances of this vehicle being approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission at 95%. Not a sure thing yet, but those odds are pretty high. In traditional markets, US stocks look set to continue their light from Friday, which could, if this trend persists over the rest of the week, live up to the market legend of the September effect. Historical market performance shows that September is typically the worst performing month for the S &P 500. The index has been down for just over half of all Septembers since 1928. That's not a glaring majority, but it looks like this month will add to the legend. Earlier this morning, the S &P 500 and the Nasdaq were both flat to slightly down, while the Dow Jones was down over two -tenths of a percent. Crossing the Atlantic, the FTSE 100 and the German DAX were also trending lower earlier today, both down 1 .2 % on Friday's close. The Euro Stoxx 600 index was down slightly less, just over nine -tenths of a percent. Sentiment is weighed down by concerns about China's property sector, the impact of higher US interest rates, and a lot of data last week showing a contracting Eurozone economy. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei index rose almost nine -tenths of a percent, as the Bank of Japan's commitment to loose monetary policy, at least for now, is supporting investor sentiment. In China, stocks were weighed down by intensifying property sector concerns as liquidators were appointed to yet another developer and the Evergrande restructuring hit a roadblock. The Shanghai Composite closed over half a percent down on Friday. The Hang Seng got hit even harder, closing down just over 1 .8%, reaching its lowest level since November of last year. In commodities, the Brent crude benchmark was more or less steady over the weekend. This is despite an announcement today that Russia plans to ease some aspects of its diesel and gasoline export ban, partially relieving, for now anyway, a potential squeeze in those key markets. Earlier today, the benchmark was trading at just under $92 per barrel, still well above where it was a year ago, but down from its recent peak of over $95. The gold price was also stable over the weekend, despite continued US dollar strength. Earlier today, it was trading at $1 ,924 per ounce.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"coindesk" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"Meet the all-new Kraken Pro, the powerful, customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. It's Kraken's most powerful trading platform ever, packed with trading features like advanced order management and analytics tools, all in a redesigned, modular trading interface. So head to pro.kraken.com and trade like a pro. Not investment advice. Some crypto products and markets are unregulated. The unpredictable nature of the crypto assets market can lead to loss of funds and profits, may be subject to capital gains tax.Welcome back. Now for the takeaways from Friday, September 22nd. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-to-date numbers over the Friday-to-Friday time period. This week, the crypto market has seen a remarkable performance from several protocols associated with art and the metaverse, leading the charge our Merit Circle with a 32% increase, ImmutableX with a 24% surge, and Adventure Gold showing an impressive 18% gain. Despite the smart contract platform sector index experiencing a 1.7% decline this week, Layer 2 smart contract platform Metis defied the trend, recording a substantial 27% week-to-date surge. In the realm of decentralization of computing resources, the CoinDesk Computing Index has displayed strong performance. The largest asset in this sector, Chainlink, has returned an impressive 8.5% week-to-date, outpacing Bitcoin's 0.4% and Ethereum's minus 2%. Like what you are hearing, head over to coindesk.com slash markets for more. We will see you tomorrow. You can reach us at podcasts at coindesk.com, follow us, and if you like the show, please leave us a 5-star rating on whatever platform you're listening to us on. Markets Daily is produced and edited by Eleanor Paul, with executive production by Jared Schwartz. I'm Noelle Atchison for CoinDesk. We're back tomorrow with more market news and insights.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"coindesk" Discussed on Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"Meet the all-new Kraken Pro, the powerful, customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. It's Kraken's most powerful trading platform ever, packed with trading features like advanced order management and analytics tools, all in a redesigned, modular trading interface. So head to pro.kraken.com and trade like a pro. Not investment advice. Some crypto products and markets are unregulated. The unpredictable nature of the crypto assets market can lead to loss of funds and profits, may be subject to capital gains tax.Welcome back. Now for the takeaways from Friday, September 22nd. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-to-date numbers over the Friday-to-Friday time period. This week, the crypto market has seen a remarkable performance from several protocols associated with art and the metaverse, leading the charge our Merit Circle with a 32% increase, ImmutableX with a 24% surge, and Adventure Gold showing an impressive 18% gain. Despite the smart contract platform sector index experiencing a 1.7% decline this week, Layer 2 smart contract platform Metis defied the trend, recording a substantial 27% week-to-date surge. In the realm of decentralization of computing resources, the CoinDesk Computing Index has displayed strong performance. The largest asset in this sector, Chainlink, has returned an impressive 8.5% week-to-date, outpacing Bitcoin's 0.4% and Ethereum's minus 2%. Like what you are hearing, head over to coindesk.com slash markets for more. We will see you tomorrow. You can reach us at podcasts at coindesk.com, follow us, and if you like the show, please leave us a 5-star rating on whatever platform you're listening to us on. Markets Daily is produced and edited by Eleanor Paul, with executive production by Jared Schwartz. I'm Noelle Atchison for CoinDesk. We're back tomorrow with more market news and insights.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"coindesk" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. Wondercraft AI Voice is here to give you six crypto market takeaways from last week. We will start by taking a look at what happened in markets in the first half of the week. Here, Coindesk Indices provides week-on-week data over seven days leading up to Tuesday, September 19th. The DeFi sector has performed exceptionally well recently. Coindesk's DeFi index surged by 9.1% week-on-week, outpacing the overall Coindesk market index, which only rose by 6.4%. Notable assets in this rally include AMM ThorChain, which climbed by 29%, and the yield protocol TrueFi, which gained 25%. In the distributed computing sector, we've witnessed some positive price movements this week. Several assets, such as the shared storage protocol Storj with a remarkable 27% increase week-on-week, and the VPN platform Orchid showing an 18% rise week-over-week, which have consistently outperformed the market. However, Layer 1 Avalanche stands out for its negative performance in the crypto space this week, with Avax declining by 1% week-on-week. Stay tuned for after the break when we will bring you three more takeaways from Friday, September 22nd.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"coindesk" Discussed on Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. Wondercraft AI Voice is here to give you six crypto market takeaways from last week. We will start by taking a look at what happened in markets in the first half of the week. Here, Coindesk Indices provides week-on-week data over seven days leading up to Tuesday, September 19th. The DeFi sector has performed exceptionally well recently. Coindesk's DeFi index surged by 9.1% week-on-week, outpacing the overall Coindesk market index, which only rose by 6.4%. Notable assets in this rally include AMM ThorChain, which climbed by 29%, and the yield protocol TrueFi, which gained 25%. In the distributed computing sector, we've witnessed some positive price movements this week. Several assets, such as the shared storage protocol Storj with a remarkable 27% increase week-on-week, and the VPN platform Orchid showing an 18% rise week-over-week, which have consistently outperformed the market. However, Layer 1 Avalanche stands out for its negative performance in the crypto space this week, with Avax declining by 1% week-on-week. Stay tuned for after the break when we will bring you three more takeaways from Friday, September 22nd.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"coindesk" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"Meet the all-new Kraken Pro, the powerful, customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. It's Kraken's most powerful trading platform ever, packed with trading features like advanced order management and analytics tools, all in a redesigned, modular trading interface. So head to pro.kraken.com and trade like a pro. Not investment advice? Some crypto products and markets are unregulated. The unpredictable nature of the crypto assets market can lead to loss of funds and profits, maybe subject to capital gains tax.Welcome back. Now for the takeaways from Friday, September 15th. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-to-date numbers over the Friday-to-Friday time period. Peer-to-peer VPN network Orchid leads among the 183 assets in the CoinDesk market index, up 40% week-to-date. Apecoin continues to underperform the crypto market, down 16%, versus the overall CoinDesk market index, up 1% week-to-date. Apecoin has been on a persistent nine-month downtrend and lost 80% of its value. Bitcoin, a member of the currency sector, has outperformed the rest of the market this week, up 2.3% week-to-date. Several other assets in the currency sector have moved higher in tandem, including Bitcoin Cash, up 11%, Alchemy Pay, up 6.8%, and Power Ledger, up 3.8%. Like what you're hearing? Head on over to coindeskmarkets.com for more. We'll see you tomorrow. You can reach us at podcasts at coindesk.com, follow us, and if you like the show, please leave us a 5-star rating on whatever platform you're listening to us on. Markets Daily is produced and edited by Eleanor Paul, with executive production by Jared Schwartz. I'm Noelle Acheson for CoinDesk. We're back tomorrow with more market news and insights.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"coindesk" Discussed on Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"Meet the all-new Kraken Pro, the powerful, customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. It's Kraken's most powerful trading platform ever, packed with trading features like advanced order management and analytics tools, all in a redesigned, modular trading interface. So head to pro.kraken.com and trade like a pro. Not investment advice? Some crypto products and markets are unregulated. The unpredictable nature of the crypto assets market can lead to loss of funds and profits, maybe subject to capital gains tax.Welcome back. Now for the takeaways from Friday, September 15th. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-to-date numbers over the Friday-to-Friday time period. Peer-to-peer VPN network Orchid leads among the 183 assets in the CoinDesk market index, up 40% week-to-date. Apecoin continues to underperform the crypto market, down 16%, versus the overall CoinDesk market index, up 1% week-to-date. Apecoin has been on a persistent nine-month downtrend and lost 80% of its value. Bitcoin, a member of the currency sector, has outperformed the rest of the market this week, up 2.3% week-to-date. Several other assets in the currency sector have moved higher in tandem, including Bitcoin Cash, up 11%, Alchemy Pay, up 6.8%, and Power Ledger, up 3.8%. Like what you're hearing? Head on over to coindeskmarkets.com for more. We'll see you tomorrow. You can reach us at podcasts at coindesk.com, follow us, and if you like the show, please leave us a 5-star rating on whatever platform you're listening to us on. Markets Daily is produced and edited by Eleanor Paul, with executive production by Jared Schwartz. I'm Noelle Acheson for CoinDesk. We're back tomorrow with more market news and insights.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"coindesk" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. Wondercraft AI voice here to give you six crypto markets takeaways from last week. We'll start by taking a look at what happened in markets during the first half of the week. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-on-week data over the seven days leading up to Tuesday, September 12th. The culture and entertainment sector, which contains digital assets associated with art, media, and the metaverse, lagged early this week relative to the rest of the market, including ImmutableX down 11%, Apecoin down 15%, and Axie Infinity down 7.8%. The majority of the market was down Tuesday to Tuesday, meaning 159 of the 183 assets in the CoinDesk market index. Bitcoin, however, relatively outperformed, while Ethereum relatively underperformed. Over the past seven days leading to Tuesday, only four protocols in the 183-asset CoinDesk market index saw double-digit appreciation. These include Automated Market Maker Perpetual Protocol, up 41%, Shared Storage Network, Storage, up 25%, Social Platform Origin Protocol, up 20%, and Smart Contract Platform Chromia, up 16%. Stay tuned for after the break, when we'll bring you three more takeaways from the week.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"coindesk" Discussed on Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. Wondercraft AI voice here to give you six crypto markets takeaways from last week. We'll start by taking a look at what happened in markets during the first half of the week. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-on-week data over the seven days leading up to Tuesday, September 12th. The culture and entertainment sector, which contains digital assets associated with art, media, and the metaverse, lagged early this week relative to the rest of the market, including ImmutableX down 11%, Apecoin down 15%, and Axie Infinity down 7.8%. The majority of the market was down Tuesday to Tuesday, meaning 159 of the 183 assets in the CoinDesk market index. Bitcoin, however, relatively outperformed, while Ethereum relatively underperformed. Over the past seven days leading to Tuesday, only four protocols in the 183-asset CoinDesk market index saw double-digit appreciation. These include Automated Market Maker Perpetual Protocol, up 41%, Shared Storage Network, Storage, up 25%, Social Platform Origin Protocol, up 20%, and Smart Contract Platform Chromia, up 16%. Stay tuned for after the break, when we'll bring you three more takeaways from the week.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"coindesk" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. It's Saturday, September 9th, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from CoinDesk. Hi, I'm Michelle Musso, and today we have a weekly roundup of markets insights provided by CoinDesk Indices. Disclaimer, we are using Wondercraft AI Voice for today's episode. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a new source and does not provide investment advice. Wondercraft AI Voice here to give you six crypto markets takeaways from last week. We'll start by taking a look at what happened in markets during the first half of the week. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-on-week data over the seven days leading up to Tuesday, September 5th. AtomicSwap's protocol multichain up 73% jumped dramatically on Monday morning. This comes after the protocol experienced an exploit in early July and has been on a consistent downtrend throughout the summer. Distributed AI platform Fetch.ai, up 29%, continues to outperform within the computing sector. Fetch.ai is the fourth best performing asset across the entire 183-asset CMI universe. The culture and entertainment sector as a whole has lagged as several of its highest market cap members have seen double-digit depreciation this week, including Metaverse platform Gala, down 19%, and NFT marketplace Blur, down 16%. Stay tuned for after the break when we'll bring you three more takeaways from the week. Meet the all-new Kraken Pro, the powerful, customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. It's Kraken's most powerful trading platform ever, packed with trading features like advanced order management and analytics tools, all in a redesigned, modular trading interface. So head to pro.kraken.com and trade like a pro. Not investment advice? Some crypto products and markets are unregulated. The unpredictable nature of the crypto assets market can lead to loss of funds and profits, maybe subject to capital gains tax.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"coindesk" Discussed on Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. It's Saturday, September 9th, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from CoinDesk. Hi, I'm Michelle Musso, and today we have a weekly roundup of markets insights provided by CoinDesk Indices. Disclaimer, we are using Wondercraft AI Voice for today's episode. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a new source and does not provide investment advice. Wondercraft AI Voice here to give you six crypto markets takeaways from last week. We'll start by taking a look at what happened in markets during the first half of the week. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-on-week data over the seven days leading up to Tuesday, September 5th. AtomicSwap's protocol multichain up 73% jumped dramatically on Monday morning. This comes after the protocol experienced an exploit in early July and has been on a consistent downtrend throughout the summer. Distributed AI platform Fetch.ai, up 29%, continues to outperform within the computing sector. Fetch.ai is the fourth best performing asset across the entire 183-asset CMI universe. The culture and entertainment sector as a whole has lagged as several of its highest market cap members have seen double-digit depreciation this week, including Metaverse platform Gala, down 19%, and NFT marketplace Blur, down 16%. Stay tuned for after the break when we'll bring you three more takeaways from the week. Meet the all-new Kraken Pro, the powerful, customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. It's Kraken's most powerful trading platform ever, packed with trading features like advanced order management and analytics tools, all in a redesigned, modular trading interface. So head to pro.kraken.com and trade like a pro. Not investment advice? Some crypto products and markets are unregulated. The unpredictable nature of the crypto assets market can lead to loss of funds and profits, maybe subject to capital gains tax.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"coindesk" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken and Simpliras. It's Saturday, September 2nd, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from CoinDesk. Hi, I'm Michelle Musso, and today we have a weekly roundup of markets insights provided by CoinDesk indices. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. Disclaimer, we are using a WonderCraft AI Voice for today's episode. WonderCraft AI Voice here to give you six crypto markets takeaways from last week. We'll start by taking a look at what happened in markets during the first half of the week. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-on-week data over the seven days leading up to Tuesday, August 29th. Several major DeFi exchanges outperformed in the early part of the week. DYDX was up 11%, SushiSwap was up 3.9%, and Curve was up 1.7% in the week leading to Tuesday, August 29th. Bitcoin and the broad market index were down over that same period. Pepe, however, continued its downtrend. The token was down another 22% in the week leading up to Tuesday, losing nearly 80% of its value since its peak in May. Lastly, some yield-related protocols showed relative strength, including TrueFi up 4.3% and Yearn Finance up 2.1%. Stay tuned for after the break when we'll bring you three more takeaways from the week. Meet the all-new Kraken Pro, the powerful, customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. It's Kraken's most powerful trading platform ever, packed with trading features like advanced order management and analytics tools, all in a redesigned, modular trading interface. So head to pro.kraken.com and trade like a pro. Not investment advice? Some crypto products and markets are unregulated. The unpredictable nature of the crypto assets market can lead to loss of funds and profits, may be subject to capital gains tax.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"coindesk" Discussed on Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken and Simpliras. It's Saturday, September 2nd, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from CoinDesk. Hi, I'm Michelle Musso, and today we have a weekly roundup of markets insights provided by CoinDesk indices. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. Disclaimer, we are using a WonderCraft AI Voice for today's episode. WonderCraft AI Voice here to give you six crypto markets takeaways from last week. We'll start by taking a look at what happened in markets during the first half of the week. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-on-week data over the seven days leading up to Tuesday, August 29th. Several major DeFi exchanges outperformed in the early part of the week. DYDX was up 11%, SushiSwap was up 3.9%, and Curve was up 1.7% in the week leading to Tuesday, August 29th. Bitcoin and the broad market index were down over that same period. Pepe, however, continued its downtrend. The token was down another 22% in the week leading up to Tuesday, losing nearly 80% of its value since its peak in May. Lastly, some yield-related protocols showed relative strength, including TrueFi up 4.3% and Yearn Finance up 2.1%. Stay tuned for after the break when we'll bring you three more takeaways from the week. Meet the all-new Kraken Pro, the powerful, customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. It's Kraken's most powerful trading platform ever, packed with trading features like advanced order management and analytics tools, all in a redesigned, modular trading interface. So head to pro.kraken.com and trade like a pro. Not investment advice? Some crypto products and markets are unregulated. The unpredictable nature of the crypto assets market can lead to loss of funds and profits, may be subject to capital gains tax.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"coindesk" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. It's Saturday, August 19th, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from CoinDesk. Hi, I'm Michelle Musso. And today we have a weekly roundup of markets insights provided by CoinDesk Indices. A disclaimer, we're using a Wondercraft AI voice for today's feature. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. Wondercraft AI voice here to give you six crypto markets takeaways from last week. We'll start by taking a look at what happened in markets during the first half of the week. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-on-week data over the seven days leading up to Tuesday, August 22nd. At the start of this week, the CoinDesk market index was up 1.1%. The computing and DeFi sectors led, while digitization and currency sectors lagged. Within the DeFi sector, several assets associated with automated market makers were among the top performers in the early half of the week, including ThorChain, up 53%, HashFlow, up 9.5%, SushiSwap, up 9.3%, and Uniswap, up 6.9%. After a month-long downtrend, MemeCoin Pepe was among the top 10 in the 183-asset CoinDesk market index this week. The MemeCoin was up 26% over the past Tuesday-to-Tuesday period, but has since dropped to an August low, following the same pattern as many cryptocurrencies. Stay tuned for after the break, when we'll bring you three more takeaways from the week. Meet the all-new Kraken Pro, the powerful, customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. It's Kraken's most powerful trading platform ever, packed with trading features like advanced order management and analytics tools, all in a redesigned, modular trading interface. So head to pro.kraken.com and trade like a pro. Not investment advice? Some crypto products and markets are unregulated. The unpredictable nature of the crypto assets market can lead to loss of funds and profits, maybe subject to capital gains tax.Welcome back. Now for the takeaways from Friday, August 18th. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-to-date numbers over the Friday-to-Friday time period. Following Thursday's broad market sell-off, only eight assets in the 183-asset CoinDesk market index, or CMI, are positive so far this week. A few standouts include DeFi exchange ThorChain, up 27%, streaming finance protocol Zebec, up 13%, and shared storage platform Akash Network, up 7.8%. Both Bitcoin, down 11%, and Ethereum, down 9.1%, showed relative resilience as the two largest protocols by market cap are currently in the top fifth of CMI constituents this week. The culture and entertainment sector, which contains digital assets associated with media, social, and gaming platforms, was a relative laggard. 80% of the 33 assets in the sector are down more than 10% this week, including Blur, down 27%, Apecoin, down 21%, and The Sandbox, down 18%. Like what you're hearing? Head on over to coindeskmarkets.com for more. We'll see you tomorrow. And that's our show for today. Thank you for listening. I'm Michelle Musa with Markets Daily. And for those of you who are still with us, we'd love to hear what you think. You can email us at podcasts at coindesk.com with the subject line markets daily. This episode was produced and edited by Eleanor Paul with executive production by Jared Swartz. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"coindesk" Discussed on Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken. It's Saturday, August 19th, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from CoinDesk. Hi, I'm Michelle Musso. And today we have a weekly roundup of markets insights provided by CoinDesk Indices. A disclaimer, we're using a Wondercraft AI voice for today's feature. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. Wondercraft AI voice here to give you six crypto markets takeaways from last week. We'll start by taking a look at what happened in markets during the first half of the week. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-on-week data over the seven days leading up to Tuesday, August 22nd. At the start of this week, the CoinDesk market index was up 1.1%. The computing and DeFi sectors led, while digitization and currency sectors lagged. Within the DeFi sector, several assets associated with automated market makers were among the top performers in the early half of the week, including ThorChain, up 53%, HashFlow, up 9.5%, SushiSwap, up 9.3%, and Uniswap, up 6.9%. After a month-long downtrend, MemeCoin Pepe was among the top 10 in the 183-asset CoinDesk market index this week. The MemeCoin was up 26% over the past Tuesday-to-Tuesday period, but has since dropped to an August low, following the same pattern as many cryptocurrencies. Stay tuned for after the break, when we'll bring you three more takeaways from the week. Meet the all-new Kraken Pro, the powerful, customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. It's Kraken's most powerful trading platform ever, packed with trading features like advanced order management and analytics tools, all in a redesigned, modular trading interface. So head to pro.kraken.com and trade like a pro. Not investment advice? Some crypto products and markets are unregulated. The unpredictable nature of the crypto assets market can lead to loss of funds and profits, maybe subject to capital gains tax.Welcome back. Now for the takeaways from Friday, August 18th. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-to-date numbers over the Friday-to-Friday time period. Following Thursday's broad market sell-off, only eight assets in the 183-asset CoinDesk market index, or CMI, are positive so far this week. A few standouts include DeFi exchange ThorChain, up 27%, streaming finance protocol Zebec, up 13%, and shared storage platform Akash Network, up 7.8%. Both Bitcoin, down 11%, and Ethereum, down 9.1%, showed relative resilience as the two largest protocols by market cap are currently in the top fifth of CMI constituents this week. The culture and entertainment sector, which contains digital assets associated with media, social, and gaming platforms, was a relative laggard. 80% of the 33 assets in the sector are down more than 10% this week, including Blur, down 27%, Apecoin, down 21%, and The Sandbox, down 18%. Like what you're hearing? Head on over to coindeskmarkets.com for more. We'll see you tomorrow. And that's our show for today. Thank you for listening. I'm Michelle Musa with Markets Daily. And for those of you who are still with us, we'd love to hear what you think. You can email us at podcasts at coindesk.com with the subject line markets daily. This episode was produced and edited by Eleanor Paul with executive production by Jared Swartz. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"coindesk" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"This is Carpe Consensus. Join hosts Ben Shiller and Danny Nelson as they seize the world of crypto. Hello and welcome to Carpe Consensus. This is a podcast from the CoinDesk Podcast Network and my name is Ben Shiller. I'm the features editor here at CoinDesk. And joining me today is Danny Nelson. Hi Danny. Hello Ben. How are you? I'm OK. It's been a tough week here at CoinDesk and we'll explain all about that in a minute. And we should just say that our normal co-host Cam Thompson is not with us today and will not be with us going forward. And we'll explain why in a minute. But how are you feeling Danny? It's been a tough week for CoinDesk so far. We made a series of layoffs recently. And how are you feeling about that? Yeah, it's the crab market, bear market, however you want to call it, takes its toll on everyone including media companies such as ours. So we had pretty extensive cuts this week and everyone's feeling the pain in the newsroom. Yeah, it's definitely a tough time. And anyone who's been in the media business for as long as I have seen a lot of these layoffs before. So it's not totally unexpected. But this is also connected obviously to the crypto market, which has been in a spiral for a while now. And we were protected by our parent company for a while. But that's gotten into trouble and we've now gotten into trouble. So it's a tough time. But we're going to soldier on through this, aren't we Danny? Well we'll certainly see, right? You know, this is my first job out of college. I've been here for four years. We can say I've levered up in my exposure to risk, right? Media is a struggling industry and crypto, the coverage of crypto is, as some might say, a dying fad. So I am in a struggling industry that focuses on a dying fad. So we don't know what's happening in crypto media, but it's not good at the moment. Yeah, so we're not going to sugarcoat this. It's been a tough week for us. And Cam was a casualty in a big round of layoffs here at Coindesk. And we're very sad to see her go. She was a very important member of this podcast and also the wider editorial team and a good egg and a good journalist. And we're very sad for her and for us and for the rest of the team. There were about 20 or so members of the editorial team that unfortunately no longer working with us and through no fault of their own because they all did all good work. So that's very sad. We don't want to make the whole show about Coindesk and the media, but it is an important part of the crypto industry. And we do play a role here in bringing transparency to the industry and holding people to account for what they say they're going to do and what they don't do. So we do feel that we need to discuss what's been going on at Coindesk recently and also in the wider crypto media. Do you feel that there's a loss of faith in what we're doing and in the media generally as regards crypto, don't you? Oh, I don't know about that. I mean, I think that broadly in American society, there's a lack of trust in media institutions. I don't necessarily think that crypto media is prone to the same risks as, say, the New York Times or something like that. But it's worth noting that we are in some ways a casualty of our own success. Coindesk was one of the leading publications that led to the dominoes falling on FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried that had ramifications for the entire industry, including DCG, our parent company, which owned Genesis Lending. And all these chickens come home to roost because even though we are editorially independent from DCG, they do not tell us what to do. They still own us, at least as of August 15th, and therefore their fate and ours are not unlinked.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"coindesk" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"This episode of Market Staley is sponsored by Kraken. Good morning. Today is Saturday, August 12th, 2023. This is Market Staley from CoinDesk. George Klud is here and today we have a weekly roundup of market takeaways from our friends at CoinDesk Indices. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide financial advice. WonderCraft AI Voice here to give you six crypto markets takeaways from last week. Up first are three takeaways from Tuesday, August 8th. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-on-week data over the seven days leading up to Tuesday, August 8th. Bitcoin, up 3.8% month-on-month, has lagged in recent weeks as 109 of the 183 assets in the CoinDesk market index have outperformed Bitcoin. Computing, up 2.4% month-on-month, leads among sectors as two protocols associated with managing on-chain oracles have seen double-digit returns. Chainlink, up 19% and API3, up 12%. Two large protocols within the payments space, Stellar, up 47% and Ripple, up 33%, are among the top 10 performers in the CoinDesk market index over the past month. Stay tuned for after the break when we'll bring you three more takeaways from last week. Meet the all-new Kraken Pro, the powerful, customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. It's Kraken's most powerful trading platform ever, packed with trading features like advanced order management and analytics tools, all in a redesigned, modular trading interface. So head to pro.kraken.com and trade like a pro. Not investment advice. Some crypto products and markets are unregulated. The unpredictable nature of the crypto assets market can lead to loss of funds and profits, may be subject to capital gains tax.Welcome back. Now for the takeaways from Friday, August 11th. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-to-date numbers over the Friday-to-Friday time period. The computing sector, which includes assets associated with decentralized data storage, data transmission and computing power, leads among sectors. This is due in part to the outperformance of shared storage platform Akash Network, up 71%, VPN Protocol Orchid, up 39%, and Oracle provider API3, up 36%. Media Protocol Live Peer, up 56%, stands out this week despite the culture and entertainment sector as a whole, being a relative laggard, down 1%. Like what you're hearing? Head on over to coindeskmarkets.com for more. We'll see you tomorrow. And that's our show for today. Thank you for listening. For those of you still with us, we'd love to hear what you think. You can email podcasts at coindesk.com with the subject line, markets daily. I'm George Kaloudis and this episode was produced and edited by Eleanor Paul with executive production by Jared Schwartz. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. I'll see y'all tomorrow.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"coindesk" Discussed on Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"This episode of Market Staley is sponsored by Kraken. Good morning. Today is Saturday, August 12th, 2023. This is Market Staley from CoinDesk. George Klud is here and today we have a weekly roundup of market takeaways from our friends at CoinDesk Indices. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide financial advice. WonderCraft AI Voice here to give you six crypto markets takeaways from last week. Up first are three takeaways from Tuesday, August 8th. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-on-week data over the seven days leading up to Tuesday, August 8th. Bitcoin, up 3.8% month-on-month, has lagged in recent weeks as 109 of the 183 assets in the CoinDesk market index have outperformed Bitcoin. Computing, up 2.4% month-on-month, leads among sectors as two protocols associated with managing on-chain oracles have seen double-digit returns. Chainlink, up 19% and API3, up 12%. Two large protocols within the payments space, Stellar, up 47% and Ripple, up 33%, are among the top 10 performers in the CoinDesk market index over the past month. Stay tuned for after the break when we'll bring you three more takeaways from last week. Meet the all-new Kraken Pro, the powerful, customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. It's Kraken's most powerful trading platform ever, packed with trading features like advanced order management and analytics tools, all in a redesigned, modular trading interface. So head to pro.kraken.com and trade like a pro. Not investment advice. Some crypto products and markets are unregulated. The unpredictable nature of the crypto assets market can lead to loss of funds and profits, may be subject to capital gains tax.Welcome back. Now for the takeaways from Friday, August 11th. Here, CoinDesk Indices provides week-to-date numbers over the Friday-to-Friday time period. The computing sector, which includes assets associated with decentralized data storage, data transmission and computing power, leads among sectors. This is due in part to the outperformance of shared storage platform Akash Network, up 71%, VPN Protocol Orchid, up 39%, and Oracle provider API3, up 36%. Media Protocol Live Peer, up 56%, stands out this week despite the culture and entertainment sector as a whole, being a relative laggard, down 1%. Like what you're hearing? Head on over to coindeskmarkets.com for more. We'll see you tomorrow. And that's our show for today. Thank you for listening. For those of you still with us, we'd love to hear what you think. You can email podcasts at coindesk.com with the subject line, markets daily. I'm George Kaloudis and this episode was produced and edited by Eleanor Paul with executive production by Jared Schwartz. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. I'll see y'all tomorrow.