GB Market Commentary 05/08/2021 by Freddie Williams
The Bitcoin (BTC) price tested the $37,500 zone before it started a stronger upward move. It broke the $39,000 resistance and it is currently testing the $39,500 level. Likewise, most major altcoins are showing positive signs. ETH outperformed BTC and rallied around 9%. XRP is holding gains above $0.7 and it might rise steadily.
The US-based financial heavyweight JPMorgan has reportedly offered its Private Bank wealth management client’s access to an “in-house Bitcoin fund”, marking a remarkable U-turn for a financial institution whose CEO has been nothing short of openly hostile toward the token and the world of crypto. According to two sources familiar with the matter, the passively managed fund, offered in partnership with Bitcoin powerhouse the New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG), doesn’t yet have any investments from clients. That could soon change; advisers were primed only yesterday in a launch call with the bank.
A Uruguayan Senator has introduced a bill seeking to “establish a legitimate, legal and safe use in businesses related to the production and commercialisation of virtual currencies”. Senator, Juan Satori has introduced a draft bill to regulate cryptocurrency and enable businesses to accept crypto payments. Satori joins a growing list of politicians from South American and Spanish-speaking countries that are seeking to bring crypto adoption into the mainstream. The Senator is not proposing the use of crypto as legal tender as in El Salvador, however.
Amid a turbulent time for the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance has announced a new partnership with Alchemy Pay to bring crypto payment options to e-commerce platforms such as Shopify. Running on the exchange’s Binance Pay feature, the partnership will allow users and merchants to send and receive crypto globally in over 40+ supported cryptocurrencies without incurring handling fees. Operating in 18 countries, merchants on Alchemy Pay’s network include Shopify, which supports 1.75 million retailers globally, as well as marketplace software company Arcadier and mobile payments company QFPay. This news presents some much-needed respite in a recent string of bad news and publicity for Binance.
Ripple have been granted access to Binance’s records in SEC securities case. The documents may provide critical evidence that CEO Brad Garlinghouse was acting outside of the SEC’s jurisdiction. As part of the case against Ripple for selling unregistered securities, the SEC claims that Garlinghouse sold more than 357 million XRP tokens on crypto trading platforms to investors all over the world. The legal team representing Garlinghouse requested documents “relevant to the case and unobtainable through other means” from Binance Holdings Limited on the 2nd of August. The filing stated that the Ripple CEO sought foreign discovery on the basis of his good faith belief that Binance possessed unique documents and information concerning this case.
The weather information provider AccuWeather announced on Wednesday that it is launching a Chainlink node to place its weather APIs directly onto blockchain based smart contracts. A few possible uses for AccuWeather-powered smart contracts include NFTs that can change depending on different factors such as forecasts, prediction markets against natural disasters, and automatic supply chain shifts correlated with the weather. This is bullish behaviour for Chainlink and I believe that this could be one to keep an eye on over the coming weeks.
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