CoinDesk Crypto

The team behind the decentralized Domain Name Server (DNS) project, Handshake, recently patched a bug which could have inflated the supply of HNS coins.

When it existed in Handshake’s code, the bug was never exploited and no user funds or domain data were compromised, Handshake’s developers write in a post.

“A flaw was discovered in the Handshake protocol that could unintentionally increase the total HNS coin supply beyond its designed limits,” the post reads. “A user with a reserved name claim could have accidentally generated small amounts of extra HNS by modifying their wallet. In the worst-case scenario, a malicious miner could generate nearly unlimited extra HNS in every block. The bug was never exploited and is now fixed.” 

Related: Market Wrap: Ether Jumps to All-Time High as Bitcoin Stalls Despite JPMorgan’s $130K Call

See also: Handshake Goes Live With an Uncensorable Internet Browser

The team advises miners and node operators to update to the newest version asap.

Handshake is a decentralized domain name service, wherein users can purchase Handshake names, an alternative to the DNS identifiers traditionally used for accessing websites (Handshake users pay for these in HNS token). Per the blog post, the bug would have given users who have claimed Handshake names the ability to accidentally print extra HNS tokens.

Matthew Zipkin, former developer at BitGo and a contributor to Bcoin, alerted the team of the vulnerability on March 24. From here, Handshake developer (and Lightning Network architect) Joseph Poon and fellow Handshake dev Christopher Jeffrey coded fixes which were rolled out to HNS mining pools first.

Related: Publicly-Traded Fintech Firm Acquires Chinese Mining Farm for $9M

The team approached miners like F2Pool and Poolin first because the bug required overhauling Handshake’s code, the post reads. 

“This flaw is not just an implementation bug that could be fixed with a software patch. It is a problem with the design of the Handshake protocol and so it affects every user and all full nodes. The only way to fix this kind of issue is with a soft fork, which adds new rules to the protocol and is enforced by miners,” they say.

“Soft forks” are blockchain upgrades where new versions of a software are made compatible with older versions and, as the post admits, they typically occur with total community involvement. Handshake’s team executed this emergency soft fork because “the flaw could not be disclosed until the new protocol rules were in place and enforced by as much hashrate as possible,” the team says in the post.

• Crypto as a Payment System? Here We Go Again
• ‘Blockchain Recovery’ Scam Is Posing as a Legit Firm, UK FCA Warns

• Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $58,930 as of 20:15 UTC (4:15 p.m. ET). Up 0.3% since 0:00 UTC. Flat over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $58,491-$60,102 (CoinDesk pricing)

Bitcoin was little changed, after briefly pushing above $60,000 earlier Friday but quickly finding selling pressure that brought the largest cryptocurrency’s price back down to about $58,900 as of press time.

“This could be an interesting weekend for bitcoin as much of the institutional money is expected to be dormant,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst for the foreign-exchange broker Oanda. “Weekend volatility has been somewhat of a story this year, so many crypto watchers will look to see if any whales try to take advantage of illiquid conditions.”  

Though bitcoin has roughly doubled in price this year, the gains have stalled around $60,000, despite continuing signs of growing mainstream adoption, including lofty price predictions from Wall Street firms including JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, and the brokerage firm BTIG.

Related: Decentralized DNS Project Handshake Patches Inflation Bug

JPMorgan issued a note Thursday arguing that bitcoin could fetch a long-term price of $130,000 if its volatility continues to decline. According to the bank, Bitcoin is becoming more appealing to institutions seeking low-correlation assets that diversify portfolios, Business Insider reported Thursday.

BTIG issued a “buy” rating on shares of Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy, the business intelligence firm and bitcoin storehouse. The firm’s analysts said their valuation was partly based on an assumption that BTC could rise to $95,000 by the end of 2022.

Bitcoin has been increasingly embraced by big investors as potential hedge against inflation, in the face of trillions of dollars of stimulus from governments and central banks around the world, attempting to jolt their coronavirus-racked economies.

Greg Cipolaro, head of research for the digital-asset manager NYDIG, wrote Friday in a weekly newsletter that he sees bitcoin “as an alternative to existing economic systems, which is why we think it has elicited so much interest, especially in the current easy money era.”

Related: Publicly-Traded Fintech Firm Acquires Chinese Mining Farm for $9M

Read More: Bitcoin’s Drop in Volatility May Boost Appeal, Make $130K Possible, JPMorgan Says: Report

• Ether (ETH) trading around $2,100. Climbing 6.5% since 0:00 UTC, 5.9% over the previous 24 hours.
• Ether’s 24-hour range: $1,950-$2,097 (CoinDesk pricing)

Ether jumped Friday to a new all-time high as the second-biggest cryptocurrency extended its winning streak to five days.

The native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, ether traded as high as $2,097 around 20:41 UTC, according to CoinDesk 20 data.

The price has rallied 24% this week in the wake of Visa’s decision to facilitate crypto-based settlements on the Ethereum network.

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who hosts the CNBC show “Shark Tank” and owns the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team, said on a recent podcast episode that he’s bullish on cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, but that Ethereum is “the closest we have to a true currency.”

According to data tweeted by options analytics platform Genesis Volatility, traders are aggressively buying the $25,000 call option expiring on Dec. 31, 2021, listed on Deribit, the world’s largest crypto options exchange by trading volumes and open interest.

Read More: Ether Price Jumps to All-Time High

• Crypto as a Payment System? Here We Go Again
• ‘Blockchain Recovery’ Scam Is Posing as a Legit Firm, UK FCA Warns

Future FinTech, a New York-based publicly-traded software firm, has acquired Nanjing Ribensi Electronic Technology Co., in an effort to break into Bitcoin mining.

The U.S. tech company purchased the Chinese Bitcoin miner for $9 million, according to a press release. Per the agreement, FutureFinTech will take full ownership of the firm’s mining operations, which includes some 30,000 ASICs located in China’s hydro-rich Sichuan region, but Nanjing Ribensi’s current staff will continue maintaining the farms.

Future FinTech CEO Shanchun Huang said the low cost of energy was a factor in the decision.

The farm “enables us to deploy advanced bitcoin mining machines, but to potentially generate profits due to the expected low energy cost of the target mining farm since it uses local low cost of hydroelectricity to run the mining machines,” he said.

Related: Decentralized DNS Project Handshake Patches Inflation Bug

According to the statement, the sale comes with guaranteed profit targets between $2-4 million up to 2023. If the farm fails to hit these numbers, then Nanjing Ribensi’s shareholders will make up the difference, the press release claims. 

In the months leading up to the purchase, FutureFinTech issued new shares to raise a total of $35 million, SEC filings show.  The company’s stock jumped on the news but has since retraced this move.

Bitcoin miners came off their best month ever last March, raking in over $1.5 billion in revenue. The Bitcoin network’s mining difficulty recently adjusted to a new all-time high as a result.

Future FinTech’s acquisition comes at a time when interest from traditional companies towards Bitcoin and its spawn of digital assets has never been higher.

Related: Market Wrap: Ether Jumps to All-Time High as Bitcoin Stalls Despite JPMorgan’s $130K Call

See also: Bitcoin Miners Saw a Monthly Record $1.5B Revenue in March

• Crypto as a Payment System? Here We Go Again
• ‘Blockchain Recovery’ Scam Is Posing as a Legit Firm, UK FCA Warns

An audacious new scamming syndicate is targeting cryptocurrency investors by imitating a legitimate firm supervised by the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the regulator said.

The “clone” outfit has been emailing and cold-calling investors and impersonating Gain Capital UK Limited by attaching that (legit) company’s Firm Reference Number to a fake name, “Blockchain Recovery Association,” an FCA blog post states. (To be clear: Gain Capital UK Limited is a real company that is authorized by the FCA to carry out certain services.)

“Fraudsters are using the details of firms we authorise to try to convince people that they work for a genuine, authorised firm,” the FCA said. 

Related: Decentralized DNS Project Handshake Patches Inflation Bug

“Almost all firms and individuals carrying out financial services activities in the UK have to be authorised or registered by us. [The Blockchain Recovery Association] is not authorised or registered by us but has been targeting people in the UK, claiming to be an authorised firm.” 

The fake firm has listed its address and phone number as: Cambridge Court 210, Shepherds Bush Rd, Hammersmith, London; +44 555-183-726. CoinDesk reached out to this number and received a “this call cannot be completed as dialed” message (555 numbers, traditionally used for directory assistance, often indicate fake numbers).

Impersonating legitimate organizations is a longstanding, and unfortunately often effective, practice among scammers. In the U.S., for example, mortgage fraudsters have posed as government housing officials from the Great Depression well into the 21st century. Email phishing scams can be thought of as a low-effort digital version of the same ruse.

While the FCA post does not explicitly state the nature of the cloned firm’s chicanery, the fraud appears to be an attempt to trick crypto users into exposing the private keys to their holdings or other personal information.

Related: Market Wrap: Ether Jumps to All-Time High as Bitcoin Stalls Despite JPMorgan’s $130K Call

The scam identified by FCA is perhaps a reminder that, as crypto becomes more institutionalized, scammers will find newer (and bolder) ways still to filch what they can from this trillion-dollar asset class.

Traditionally, an easy attack vector for hackers and like have been phishing attacks. With these attacks, malicious actors trick crypto users into entering sensitive information, like a password or private key, on a website or through a messaging medium to gain access to accounts or coins.

Alternatively, these actors may use personal contact information like email addresses, phone numbers and home addresses to extort and threaten victims. 

In the past, data leaks from hardware wallet Ledger and crypto lender BlockFi, among others, have led to phishing or extortion attempts. As bitcoin and other coins rise in price, scams and fraud are matching the market demand, with fake wallets even making their way on popular app stores.

A name like “Blockchain Recovery Association” should set off alarm bells anyway, since, as many crypto users have learned the hard way, once coins have been stolen, they cannot be recovered.

• Publicly-Traded Fintech Firm Acquires Chinese Mining Farm for $9M
• Crypto as a Payment System? Here We Go Again

In an interview with CNBC Squawk Box posted Thursday, Clayton said bitcoin had the status as a non-security at the SEC but this does not mean it should not be regulated.

• “Where digital assets land at the end of the day will be driven in part by regulation both domestic and international, and I expect that regulation will come in this area both directly and indirectly,” Clayton said about bitcoin.
• The former SEC Chairman stressed he was “speaking as a citizen” during the interview. 
• Under Clayton, the SEC cracked down on unregistered and fraudulent initial coin offerings. The commission also refused to approve the application of any bitcoin exchange-traded funds and sued Ripple Labs.
• In March, Clayton took on an advisory role at hedge fund One River Digital Asset Management, the parent company of the newly launched digital asset fund One River Digital.
• Clayton was also named non-executive chairman of Apollo Global Management’s board of directors.

• FinCEN Names Former Chainalysis Executive Acting Director as Blanco Resigns
• Bitcoin Decoupled From Stocks in Q1 as Institutional Demand Strengthened: CoinDesk Research
• Thai Central Bank to Pilot Its Retail Central Bank Digital Currency in 2022: Report
• US Added More Than 900K Jobs in March, Blowing Past Estimates

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) just hired Chainalysis’ former chief technical officer as its new acting director, a hire that reflects the federal government’s increased interest in the growing cryptocurrency sector.

Michael Mosier will assume the post on April 11 following the departure of current Director Kenneth A. Blanco, who announced his resignation. In regards to crypto during his tenure, Blanco commented that the burgeoning industry is subject to existing regulations and does not require its own legal framework.

Most recently, Mosier served as the Counselor to the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, which he took on last month after having served as FinCEN’s Deputy Director and first Digital Innovation Officer.

Related: Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton Warns of New Bitcoin Regulations

Joining Mosier is AnnaLou Tirol, the former associate director of FinCEN’s Strategic Operations Division, who will now serve as FinCEN’s deputy director.

Before his jaunt as a Deputy Secretary and his new job at FinCEN, Mosier was the chief technical officer at blockchain surveillance firm Chainalysis. Mosier held the position from June 2019 until February 2020 when he joined FinCEN for the first time. FinCEN, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury, serves as the U.S. financial intelligence unit. 

Established in 2014, Chainalysis uses public blockchain data to trace and deanonymize cryptocurrency transactions for law enforcements, private companies and government agencies. The company’s software has been used by public and private entities to trace exchange hacks and pinpoint illicit transactions. With the new bull market in cryptocurrencies, Chainalysis and its products have found favor with U.S. federal and state agencies.

• Bitcoin Decoupled From Stocks in Q1 as Institutional Demand Strengthened: CoinDesk Research
• Thai Central Bank to Pilot Its Retail Central Bank Digital Currency in 2022: Report
• U.S. Added More Than 900K Jobs In March, Blowing Past Estimates

Institutions haven’t just pushed bitcoin (BTC) prices toward the moon during the past two quarters; they seem to have helped the cryptocurrency decouple from traditional markets like the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. stocks.

“The 90-day correlations between BTC and both gold and stocks (represented by the S&P 500) reverted to a more typical range of 0.0-0.2 during Q1, most likely as a result of the growing clarity around its value proposition relative to more traditional assets,” CoinDesk’s research analysts noted in their first quarter review.

In simple words, analysts mean that the accumulation of bitcoin during the first quarter by major public-listed firms such as Tesla, the electric vehicle maker led by billionaire Elon Musk, validated the long-held belief in digital-asset markets that the cryptocurrency could serve as a reserve asset or a digital alternative to gold.

Related: Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton Warns of New Bitcoin Regulations

That likely offered investors clarity on bitcoin’s use case or value proposition relative to traditional markets and weakened the cryptocurrency’s mild positive correlation with stocks and gold.

The correlation between bitcoin and the S&P 500 was higher for most of 2020 – a sign that many investors viewed the cryptocurrency as just another risky asset class like stocks. Back then, gold, a proven haven asset, also moved in line with equities.

While the cryptocurrency is no longer tracking stocks and gold so closely, its inverse correlation with the U.S. dollar remains intact, meaning a continued rally in the greenback (versus foreign-exchange counterparts like the euro, yen and British pound) may slow down bitcoin’s rally.

The dollar index, which tracks the greenback’s value against major fiat currencies, clocked a four-month high of 93.44 on March 31. Analysts recently told Forbes that the U.S. dollar is likely to lose ground this year as the global economy continues to recover from the coronavirus-induced recession.

Related: FinCEN Names Former Chainalysis Executive Acting Director as Blanco Resigns

Also read: Retail Gains Amid Institutional Influx in Q1: CoinDesk Quarterly Review

• Thai Central Bank to Pilot Its Retail Central Bank Digital Currency in 2022: Report
• U.S. Added More Than 900K Jobs In March, Blowing Past Estimates

The Bank of Thailand (BoT) will begin piloting its retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the second quarter of 2022, according to a published report.

• Thailand’s central bank assistant governor announced Friday it is open to accepting public feedback on its retail CBDCs by 15 June this year.
• BoT said the main objective of the currency is to provide citizens with access to more convenient and secure financial services.
• The bank is planning to fully implement the currency over the next 3-5 years, according to a Reuters report.
• The CBDCs will be aimed at providing access to convenient and secure financial services and, “it will not affect the Thai financial system,” Vachira Arromdee, the assistant governor of the financial markets operations group, Bank of Thailand, said at a briefing, according to Reuters.
• In March, BoT said it will issue regulations on asset-backed stablecoins later this year after warning against the illegal use of a baht-denominated stablecoin that was created outside the country.

Read more: Thai SEC Backtracks on Unpopular Proposal for New Crypto Investor Qualifications

• Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton Warns of New Bitcoin Regulations
• FinCEN Names Former Chainalysis Executive Acting Director as Blanco Resigns
• Bitcoin Decoupled From Stocks in Q1 as Institutional Demand Strengthened: CoinDesk Research
• U.S. Added More Than 900K Jobs In March, Blowing Past Estimates

The U.S. added 916,000 jobs in March, far above the expectations for 675,000. The unemployment rate edged down to 6% from 6.2% 

The gains were led by leisure and hospitality, public and private education, and construction. 

The pandemic-hit leisure and hospitality sector added a whopping 280,000 jobs.

Related: Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton Warns of New Bitcoin Regulations

With increased vaccination rates, macroeconomic uncertainty for the U.S. labor market is decreasing. While institutions have been providing the largest inflows to high yield assets like bitcoin recently, the decrease in uncertainty could bode well for retail investors in digital assets. 

While many investors treat bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and in some cases a hedge against macroeconomic uncertainty, a recent survey of European households by an economics professor at the University of Texas, Olivier Coibion, and four other economists showed that households reduced their share of assets allocated to crypto by 0.5 percentage points during times of elevated macroeconomic uncertainty. 

One notable difference between economic recovery in a pandemic-induced recession and recovery in previous recessions is the large fraction of unemployment caused by temporary layoffs, said Robert Hall, an economics professor at Stanford University. 

“In the previous recessions, the unemployed on temporary layoffs were a tiny fraction of all the unemployed,” Hall said. “The distinction is important because the unemployed on temporary layoffs typically have a much higher rate of returning to employment than the other unemployed.”

• FinCEN Names Former Chainalysis Executive Acting Director as Blanco Resigns
• Bitcoin Decoupled From Stocks in Q1 as Institutional Demand Strengthened: CoinDesk Research
• Thai Central Bank to Pilot Its Retail Central Bank Digital Currency in 2022: Report

The U.S. added 916,000 jobs in March, far above the expectations for 675,000. The unemployment rate edged down to 6% from 6.2% 

The gains were led by leisure and hospitality, public and private education, and construction. 

The pandemic-hit leisure and hospitality sector added a whopping 280,000 jobs.

Related: Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton Warns of New Bitcoin Regulations

With increased vaccination rates, macroeconomic uncertainty for the U.S. labor market is decreasing. While institutions have been providing the largest inflows to high yield assets like bitcoin recently, the decrease in uncertainty could bode well for retail investors in digital assets. 

While many investors treat bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and in some cases a hedge against macroeconomic uncertainty, a recent survey of European households by an economics professor at the University of Texas, Olivier Coibion, and four other economists showed that households reduced their share of assets allocated to crypto by 0.5 percentage points during times of elevated macroeconomic uncertainty. 

One notable difference between economic recovery in a pandemic induced recession and recovery in previous recessions is the large fraction of unemployment caused by temporary layoffs, said Robert Hall, an economics professor at Stanford University. 

“In the previous recessions, the unemployed on temporary layoffs were a tiny fraction of all the unemployed,” Hall said. “The distinction is important because the unemployed on temporary layoffs typically have a much higher rate of returning to employment than the other unemployed.”

• FinCEN Names Former Chainalysis Executive Acting Director as Blanco Resigns
• Bitcoin Decoupled From Stocks in Q1 as Institutional Demand Strengthened: CoinDesk Research
• Thai Central Bank to Pilot Its Retail Central Bank Digital Currency in 2022: Report

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could potentially facilitate powerful, directed “money drops” and raise inflation expectations, according to a March 31 report by Bank of America.

“CBDCs could boost the future transmission of monetary and fiscal stimulus,” the bank’s analysts wrote.

While the report doesn’t mention bitcoin (BTC), the analysis might show how countries’ adoption of CBDCs might indirectly create extra demand for the largest cryptocurrency as an investment hedge against inflation.

Related: Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton Warns of New Bitcoin Regulations

The Bank of America report, titled “Digital Love: Central Bank Digital Currencies,” explained the benefits of CBDCs, including the potential to increase the speed of domestic and international payment systems, while lowering costs.

Those advantages could make it easier for governments and central banks to distribute stimulus money, according to the report.

• “CBDCs represent the next frontier for central bank stimulus, potentially acting as a potent conduit for policies such as stimulus checks, emergency lending programs, UBI (universal basic income), inducing a more powerful, directed ‘money drop.’ The evolution of central bank digital currencies is likely to increase inflation expectations, boosting the case for inflation assets in the 2020s.”
• “Disruption from cryptocurrencies is prodding central banks to secure their role as the dominant means for settlement of payments, and their ability to supervise banks and conduct monetary policy,” wrote Bank of America.
• Digital currencies issued by central banks could provide disadvantaged populations with greater access to financial services without bank intermediation, according to the report.
• “CBDCs could also speed the delivery of directed stimulus or helicopter drops. For example, many of the Fed’s recent pandemic credit programs were hampered by legal and logistical issues,” including the Main Street Lending Program, which has extended only $31 billion of its $600 billion authorization.
• “The existence of a CBDC would likely have allowed simpler designs and facilitated the targeted extension of credit. In cooperation with fiscal authorities, stimulus could be surgically tailored. In contrast to broad fiscal measures like the recent $1,400 stimulus checks issued by the U.S. Treasury, governments could credit smaller amounts to specific populations or industries to achieve their policy aims.”
• However, the report also lists potential drawbacks. Governments could obtain access to private individual spending data.
• There’s also a crowding-out effect: “CBDCs could compete with banks and money funds by providing another option to store value, curtailing cheap deposit funding for banks and reducing margins on money funds.”
• Bank of America expects the evolution of CBDCs to increase inflation expectations, boosting the case for inflation assets over the next few years.

Also read: Debate Rages on Whether a Digital Dollar Will Unleash Inflation

• FinCEN Names Former Chainalysis Executive Acting Director as Blanco Resigns
• Bitcoin Decoupled From Stocks in Q1 as Institutional Demand Strengthened: CoinDesk Research
• Thai Central Bank to Pilot Its Retail Central Bank Digital Currency in 2022: Report

BTIG began coverage of MicroStrategy, the business intelligence firm/bitcoin storehouse, with a “buy” rating Wednesday, saying the company’s adoption of the cryptocurrency as its primary treasury reserve asset represents a “rational action” to protect the firm’s value in the long run.

• BTIG, which also praised the company’s core business, said it views bitcoin as a form of digital gold and that buying Microstrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) provides investors a way to gain exposure to it.
• MicroStrategy’s strategy lets it benefit from the rise of bitcoin driven by its adoption by institutional investors worried about inflation.
• BTIG said its valuation is partly based on an assumption that the price of bitcoin will rise to $95,000 by the end of 2022 and on the company’s shift from a product licence model to a cloud-first, SaaS subscription one.
• MicroStrategy has reported owning 91,326 bitcoin it bought for $2.21 billion, BTIG noted, with that stash worth now more than $5 billion. Given that MicroStrategy shares are just over half where they’d reached in early February, BTIG says the current price is an attractive entry point.
• BTIG said it has an $850 per share price target on MSTR’s shares. No time frame was provided.
• Shares of MicroStrategy closed Wednesday at $703.56, up $24.76 or 3.65%. On Feb. 8, they reached an all-time high of $1,315.

• Bitcoin’s Drop in Volatility May Boost Appeal, Make $130K Possible, JPMorgan Says: Report
• Ether Price Rises Above $2K for First in Six Weeks
• The MIT Bitcoin Expo: A Free Educational Event for Anyone Who Wants to Gain Some Crypto Tech Chops
• The MIT Bitcoin Expo: A Free Educational Event for Anyone Who Wants to Gain Some Crypto Tech Chops

JPMorgan issued a note Thursday that bitcoin could fetch a long-term price of $130,000 if its volatility continues to decline.

• According to JPMorgan, Bitcoin is becoming more appealing to institutions seeking low-correlation assets that diversify portfolios, Business Insider reported Thursday.
• The U.S. investment bank noted that high volatility “acts as a headwind towards further institutional adoption.”
• The signs that bitcoin’s volatility is diminishing could see it “crowding out gold” as a portfolio diversifier and suggests a long-term price target of $130,000, JPMorgan’s note said.
• This target is based on the notion that bitcoin’s volatility will meet gold’s, which for the time being is still some way off. Bitcoin’s realized volatility in the last three months stood at 86% compared to 16% for gold.
• A separate JPMorgan report issued to ultra-high-net-worth clients in March played down the comparison between bitcoin and gold, arguing that the crypto’s “volatility characteristics and correlation profile refute the comparison to the traditional safe haven asset.”

See also: Veteran Analyst Peter Brandt Expects Bitcoin to Reach $200K

• MicroStrategy Rated ‘Buy’ at BTIG Partly on View Bitcoin Will Hit $95K by End of 2022
• Ether Price Rises Above $2K for First in Six Weeks
• The MIT Bitcoin Expo: A Free Educational Event for Anyone Who Wants to Gain Some Crypto Tech Chops
• The MIT Bitcoin Expo: A Free Educational Event for Anyone Who Wants to Gain Some Crypto Tech Chops

Ether jumped 5% Friday to a new all-time high as the second-biggest cryptocurrency extended its winning streak to five days.

• The cryptocurrency traded as high as $2,097 around 20:41 UTC, according to CoinDesk 20 data, surpassing the previous high of .
• The price has rallied 24% this week in the wake of Visa’s decision to facilitate crypto-based settlements on the Ethereum blockchain network.
• Ether, the native cryptocurrency for Ethereum, has nearly tripled in price this year.
• In an announcement on Monday, the payments giant said it is working on a program to settle transactions in stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) over Ethereum with its partner Crypto.com.
• Billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who hosts the CNBC show “Shark Tank” and owns the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team, said on a recent podcast episode that he’s bullish on cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, but that Ethereum is “the closest we have to a true currency.”

• Ether’s daily chart shows a symmetrical triangle breakout. The pattern indicates that the multi-week consolidation has ended, and the broader uptrend has resumed.
• The options market is making big bets on the second-largest cryptocurrency, as seen below.

• According to data tweeted by options analytics platform Genesis Volatility, traders are aggressively buying the $25,000 call option expiring on Dec. 31, 2021, listed on Deribit, the world’s largest crypto options exchange by trading volumes and open interest.
• Seasonality favors a more substantial rally in ether than bitcoin over the near term.
• “Ether has outperformed bitcoin in every May till date,” Timothy Peterson, an analyst at Cane Island Alternative Advisors, told CoinDesk in a Twitter chat.

Also read: This Ether Options Play by Institutions Has Lottery Ticket Potential

• Decentralized DNS Project Handshake Patches Inflation Bug
• Market Wrap: Ether Jumps to All-Time High as Bitcoin Stalls Despite JPMorgan’s $130K Call
• Publicly-Traded Fintech Firm Acquires Chinese Mining Farm for $9M
• Crypto as a Payment System? Here We Go Again

Ether jumped 5% Friday to a new all-time high as the second-biggest cryptocurrency extended its winning streak to five days.

• The cryptocurrency traded as high as $2,074.46 around 15:00 UTC, according to CoinDesk 20 data, surpassing the previous high of .
• The price has rallied 18% this week in the wake of Visa’s decision to facilitate crypto-based settlements on the Ethereum blockchain network.
• Ether, the native cryptocurrency for Ethereum, has nearly tripled in price this year.
• In an announcement on Monday, the payments giant said it is working on a program to settle transactions in stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) over Ethereum with its partner Crypto.com.
• Billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who hosts the CNBC show “Shark Tank” and owns the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team, said on a recent podcast episode that he’s bullish on cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, but that Ethereum is “the closest we have to a true currency.”

• Ether’s daily chart shows a symmetrical triangle breakout. The pattern indicates that the multi-week consolidation has ended, and the broader uptrend has resumed.
• The options market is making big bets on the second-largest cryptocurrency, as seen below.

• According to data tweeted by options analytics platform Genesis Volatility, traders are aggressively buying the $25,000 call option expiring on Dec. 31, 2021, listed on Deribit, the world’s largest crypto options exchange by trading volumes and open interest.
• Seasonality favors a more substantial rally in ether than bitcoin over the near term.
• “Ether has outperformed bitcoin in every May till date,” Timothy Peterson, an analyst at Cane Island Alternative Advisors, told CoinDesk in a Twitter chat.

Also read: This Ether Options Play by Institutions Has Lottery Ticket Potential

• Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton Warns of New Bitcoin Regulations
• FinCEN Names Former Chainalysis Executive Acting Director as Blanco Resigns
• Bitcoin Decoupled From Stocks in Q1 as Institutional Demand Strengthened: CoinDesk Research
• Thai Central Bank to Pilot Its Retail Central Bank Digital Currency in 2022: Report

Ether jumped above the $2,000 mark on Friday, extending a four-day winning run.

• The cryptocurrency traded at $2,004 at 07:30 UTC, the level last seen on Feb. 20, gaining 4% over the previous 24 hours, according to CoinDesk 20 data.
• The prices has rallied 18% this week in the wake of Visa’s decision to facilitate crypto-based settlements on its network.
• In an announcement on Monday, the payments giant said it is working on a program to settle transactions in stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) over Ethereum with its partner Crypto.com.

• Ether’s daily chart shows a symmetrical triangle breakout. The pattern indicates that the multi-week consolidation has ended, and the broader uptrend has resumed.
• The immediate resistance is seen at $2,036.55 – the record high reached on Feb. 21.
• The options market is making big bets on the second-largest cryptocurrency, as seen below.

• According to data tweeted by options analytics platform Genesis Volatility, traders are aggressively buying the $25,000 call option expiring on Dec. 31, 2021, listed on Deribit, the world’s largest crypto options exchange by trading volumes and open interest.
• Seasonality favors a more substantial rally in ether than bitcoin over the near term.
• “Ether has outperformed bitcoin in every May till date,” Timothy Peterson, an analyst at Cane Island Alternative Advisors, told CoinDesk in a Twitter chat.

Also read: This Ether Options Play by Institutions Has Lottery Ticket Potential

• MicroStrategy Rated ‘Buy’ at BTIG Partly on View Bitcoin Will Hit $95K by End of 2022
• Bitcoin’s Drop in Volatility May Boost Appeal, Make $130K Possible, JPMorgan Says: Report
• The MIT Bitcoin Expo: A Free Educational Event for Anyone Who Wants to Gain Some Crypto Tech Chops
• The MIT Bitcoin Expo: A Free Educational Event for Anyone Who Wants to Gain Some Crypto Tech Chops

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty hit an all-time high today after a roughly 6% increase, a move that follows a record month in earnings for Bitcoin miners as new-generation ASICs come online.

“Difficulty” refers to the relative measure of the amount of resources required to mine bitcoin. This measurement climbs or falls depending on the amount of power consumed (or “hashrate” produced) by the network at a given time. Bitcoin is programmed to adjust its difficulty level every 2,016 blocks, or roughly every 2 weeks to ensure that new blocks are mined at a stable rate.

This difficulty is measured on a relative scoring scale where Bitcoin launched with a mining difficulty of “1,” the lowest it’s ever been. (Difficulty kind of works like Google Search scores in that the scoring system is internal and has no reference point or unit for measurement outside of the networks themselves).

Related: The MIT Bitcoin Expo: A Free Educational Event for Anyone Who Wants to Gain Some Crypto Tech Chops

As of today’s adjustment, Bitcoin’s current mining difficulty is 23.1 trillion, according to data pulled from this CoinDesk journalist’s Bitcoin node. Per figures from BTC.com, this is a roughly 6% increase from its last level of 21.8 trillion, which makes it the second largest adjustment of the year and the fifth upward adjustment in the last six difficulty periods.

The difficulty adjustment is arguably one of Bitcoin’s most important features as it ensures block times remain relatively stable while also preventing a large miner from eating up too much hashrate.

This latest adjustment is a notable bump, Compass mining CEO Whit Gibbs told CoinDesk, because it’s likely attributable to tens of thousands of new machines coming online that were previously on backorder in the ASIC supply chain.

He said the current adjustment is just a sampler of the flood of hashrate that will come online in 2022 as more back-ordered shipments are filled.

Related: The Bitcoin Community is Your Community. How the MIT Bitcoin Club Participates and You Can Too

“Today’s moderately large difficulty increase is not surprising, and I expect it’s only a taste of what will come later in this year and into 2022, as delayed machine shipments start arriving and being deployed. The pending flood of hashrate about to enter the market will only continue pushing bitcoin’s mining difficulty higher, which should track with bitcoin’s price,” Gibbs said.

As bitcoin’s price has gone stratospheric, mining investments are shooting the moon along with it. North American miners like Hut 8, Marathon, Blockcap and others have used 2021 as an opportunity to aggressively expand operational capacity. As these machines come online, Bitcoin’s hashrate and difficulty are rising in step with miner revenues, which hit a record $1.5 billion in the month of March.

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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can move forward with its efforts to unmask high-value customers at Circle Internet Financial, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

The judge authorized a request from the IRS to issue a “John Doe Summons” on all Circle and Poloniex customers who transacted $20,000 or more in crypto between 2016 and 2020. Such summons are a tactic the IRS uses to demand information on people it can not identify by name. (Circle spun out Poloniex in 2019 after buying the exchange for $400 million in 2018.)

The IRS told the court it needs the documents to ensure crypto users are paying their taxes. It believes many have not, and will now issue summons on the records to prove it. The IRS said this does not necessarily mean Circle has broken the law.

Related: Retail Gains Amid Institutional Influx in Q1: CoinDesk Quarterly Review

It does represent a continuation of the U.S. tax collector taking crypto investments more seriously for tax year 2020.

“Tools like the John Doe summons authorized today send the clear message to U.S. taxpayers that the IRS is working to ensure that they are fully compliant in their use of virtual currency,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in the press statement, adding:

“The John Doe summons is a step to enable the IRS to uncover those who are failing to properly report their virtual currency transactions. We will enforce the law where we find systemic noncompliance or fraud.”

The agency has previously used John Doe summons to go after Coinbase, which fought the order for more than a year before ultimately complying, divulging nearly 14,000 customer records.

Related: CoinDesk Quarterly Review 2021 Q1

Requests for comment sent to Circle were not returned by press time.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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• Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $58,916.75 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Slipping 0.02% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $57,973.35-$59,458.98(CoinDesk 20)
• BTC trades between its 10-hour and 50-hour averages on the hourly chart, a sideways signal for market technicians.

Bitcoin retreated after failing for a second day to break through price resistance at $60,000, a key psychological level that has also proven a formidable stopping point during this year’s powerful rally.

A major missing ingredient from the market recently? Spot trading volume.

Thursday’s volume has trended lower since bitcoin broke a record high on March 13, according to data from eight leading crypto exchanges tracked by CoinDesk.

Related: Retail Gains Amid Institutional Influx in Q1: CoinDesk Quarterly Review

“We still see the highest volume when the market sells off, which is a concern,” Arcane Research wrote in its weekly newsletter on March 30.

But to bitcoin bulls, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is likely to test a new all-time high very soon.

“Bitcoin is poised to retest the $60,000 level again,” said Jason Lau, chief operating officer at San Francisco-based crypto exchange OKCoin. “The reason for this recent rally is that bitcoin and crypto have gone mainstream.”

Despite the effete price action over the past few weeks, there’s been little slowdown in news and developments related to mainstream adoption of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies: BlackRock disclosed it has been trading bitcoin futures, PayPal said it will enable crypto payments, Goldman Sachs is getting close to offering bitcoin to its wealth management clients, and burrito chain Chipotle is doing a bitcoin giveaway.

Related: CoinDesk Quarterly Review 2021 Q1

“The normalization of crypto in daily chatter and usage is increasingly obvious,” Lau said.

Read More: Bitcoin Newbies Are HODLing as Prices Rise, Blockchain Data Suggests

• Ether (ETH) trading around $1,974.18 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Climbing 3.55% over the previous 24 hours.
• Ether’s 24-hour range: $1,888.64-$1,983.45 (CoinDesk 20)
• Ether trades above its 10-hour and 50-hour averages on the hourly chart, a bullish signal for market technicians.

Ether has outperformed bitcoin in the past 24 hours, which could be “a signal of crypto asset rotation,” according to OKCoin’s Lau.

Alternative cryptocurrencies mostly outperformed during the first quarter, based on CoinDesk 20 data. While bitcoin logged an extraordinary 102% return, that level of performance was only good enough for 14th place in the CoinDesk quarterly ranking.

Cardano (ADA) was the top performer in terms of percentage gains, with a staggering 560% return.

The token is now the No. 5 cryptocurrency by market capitalization, behind only bitcoin, ether, Binance’s BNB token and the stablecoin tether, per Messari data.

ADA, which is the native token for the smart-contract blockchain Cardano, tripled in February alone as traders bet on the success of “Ethererum Killers.”

In March, Cardano received a price boost thanks to the so-called Coinbase effect. The U.S. cryptocurrency exchange giant listed ADA on both its institutional platform Coinbase Pro and more retail-centered Coinbase exchange in March, sending the price higher.

Read More: Cardano Becomes a Multi-Asset Blockchain With Today’s Hard Fork

Other digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mostly in the green Thursday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):

• eos (EOS) + 22.94%
• tezos (XTZ) + 14.3%
• chainlink (LINK) + 8.58%
• kyber network (KNC) + 8.05%

One notable loser:

• omg network (OMG) – 4.63%

Equities:

• Asia’s Nikkei 225 closed in the green 0.72%.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe was up by 0.35%.
• The S&P 500 in the United States closed 1.18% higher.

Commodities:

• Oil was up 3.50%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $61.23.
• Gold was in the green 1.24% and at $1728.48 as of press time.

Treasurys:

• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield fell Thursday in the red 1.687%.

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Coinbase will begin the public trading of its stock on April 14, it said Thursday.

The crypto exchange will also hold a first-quarter earnings call on April 6, providing a financial outlook for 2021, Coinbase said in a press release.

There’s been much anticipation about the Nasdaq listing. Prices for the shares are predicted to fall between $300 and $350, valuing the trading platform at about $100 billion. The listing would put Coinbase atop an emerging class of publicly traded firms dealing in bitcoin. Further, a $100 billion debut would make Coinbase more valuable than traditional tech stocks such as Uber.

Related: Retail Gains Amid Institutional Influx in Q1: CoinDesk Quarterly Review

Based on the average price of $343.58 of shares traded on Nasdaq’s private market last month, CNBC calculated Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s 39.6 million shares will be worth $13.6 billion, catapulting him into the “decabillionaire” rankings alongside the likes of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Bill Gates.

The price of bitcoin increasing tenfold over the course of the last year has caught the market by surprise, with banks and institutions now scrambling to get a piece of the action. 

Investors in Coinbase’s early fundraisings, a close-knit group of Silicon Valley investment firms and early crypto believers, have increased their investments by 100-fold in some cases. The windfall could spread much further, however: The endowment fund of Duke University will be a beneficiary of Coinbase’s public listing, CoinDesk reported last week.

Armstrong was paid a salary of $1 million last year, though his total compensation topped $59 million with all his option awards, CNBC also reported.

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