Bitcoin Going to $200K, Coinbase to Join S&P 500: Bitwise's 10 Predictions for 2025

With the highly successful introduction of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, the U.S. crypto regulatory situation looking much rosier now that former President Donald Trump has been elected for a second term, and the bullish price action, it’s undeniable that 2024 was a big year for crypto.

But things could get even crazier in 2025, according to Bitwise Asset Management, a firm which specializes in developing crypto investment products. The company laid out 10 crypto predictions for the year to come in <a href="https://ift.tt/PxUEWAD" target="_blank">a report</a> released Wednesday, penned by the firm's chief investment officer, Matt Hougan, and its head of research, Ryan Rasmussen.

First among the predictions is that all major cryptocurrencies will see new record highs. Bitcoin will push to $200,000, said Bitwise, while ether will hit $7,000 and solana will more than triple to $750.

Bitcoin’s rise will be fueled by even bigger ETF inflows than in 2024, Bitwise said. That's a strong statement given their success already, but the team noted that it's not unusual fo ETFs to take in larger flows in year two versus year one. They also remind that major wirehouses are only now finishing up their due diligence on the products and investors are feeling more comfortable increasing their exposure to bitcoin.

There’s also the possibility that the U.S. Department of Labor won’t be so adversarial towards the sector anymore, which according to Bitwise could enable tens of billions of dollars to flow into crypto assets from 401(k) plans.

And a potential bitcoin arms race — kicked off by U.S. politicians’ plans to constitute a strategic bitcoin reserve — would certainly help move the price upwards. Bitwise predicted that the number of countries holding bitcoin will double in 2025 from nine to eighteen.

Other possibilities for 2025

Stablecoins will likely benefit from clear legislation in the U.S. and fintech integrations, as well as rising prices, and double their market capitalization to $400 billion, according to Bitwise.

Tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), meanwhile, could see their value shoot past $50 billion as Wall Street keeps wading deeper into the sector.

And the 2025 memecoin mania could even top this year’s, as AI agents are making it easier than ever to launch tokens.

Crypto companies will also have a good year, Bitwise predicted. A host of them could launch IPOs, Bitwise said, with stablecoin issuer Circle, crypto lending firm Figure, on-chain data company Chainalysis, crypto exchange Kraken and crypto custodian Anchorage Digital as the most likely to do so.

Already public for several years, crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) could see its stock top $700 per share, or more than double the current level, Bitwise said, meaning it would surpass Charles Schwab as the most valuable brokerage in the world.

Further, suggests Bitwise, it could mean that Coinbase could be included in the S&P 500. Coupled with MicroStrategy's likely inclusion into the Nasdaq 100, there’s a chance that almost every U.S. investor will have exposure to crypto through these investment vehicles.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/12/11/bitcoin-going-to-200-k-coinbase-to-join-s-and-p-500-bitwises-10-predictions-for-2025

The Protocol: A Quantum Threat to Bitcoin?

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I'm <a href="https://ift.tt/9yDYUNg" target="_blank">Marc Hochstein</a>, CoinDesk's deputy editor-in-chief for features, opinion and standards.

In this issue:

What does Google's quantum computing chip mean for Bitcoin?

Dev's defection highlights Ethereum's growing Solana problem

OrdinalsBot inscribes largest-ever file on Bitcoin blockchain

Polygon touts speed of Plonky3 proving system

Crypto's most influential techies of 2024

Network News

NEED FOR SPEED: Polygon Labs claims its newest proving system, Plonky3, is the fastest on the market. (Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum's creator, apparently <a href="https://ift.tt/0jBgvTe" target="_blank">agrees</a>.) A proving system is at the core of <a href="https://ift.tt/bpuD6mc." target="_blank">zero-knowledge rollups</a>, and a crucial component for transactions that rely on cryptographic security. It is the main piece of technology that creates proofs that summarize off-chain transactions, which are then sent back to a base blockchain (in this case, Ethereum). “If a zkVM is a car, you could look at the proving system as being the engine, so Plonky3 is kind of what makes everything work,” Brendan Farmer, a co-founder at Polygon, tells CoinDesk's <a href="https://ift.tt/Wh5QeMj" target="_blank">Margaux Nijkerk</a>. The quicker a proof is generated, the less computing time that must be paid for. “If we improve speed, then we're improving costs,” Farmer said. “And so what this does is it makes ZK rollup really competitive in terms of costs.” In January 2022, Polygon released <a href="https://ift.tt/RNFULu1" target="_blank">its previous proving system</a>, called Plonky2, claiming then that it was the fastest one on the market. Plonky3, the new and improved version that has more flexibility, <a href="https://ift.tt/LkhyEQ1" target="_blank">was released</a> in July.

IN AWE OF THE SIZE OF THIS LAD: Bitcoin inscriptions project OrdinalsBot minted what it says is the largest file ever on the oldest and most valuable blockchain: the last in a collection of 1,500 "Pizza Ninjas." It's part of a phenomenon in the Bitcoin development community known as "four meggers," which are files that take up an entire block on the network. They are called four meggers because they are almost 4 megabytes (MB) big (the maximum size of each block of transactions on Bitcoin). Ordinal collectors consider them valuable due to their visibility on the blockchain. "There's more than just bragging rights behind wanting to have the largest file on Bitcoin," said Toby Lewis, co-founder of OrdinalsBot. "Four meggers will be on the Bitcoin blockchain forever and they already hold significant market value." Bitcoin inscriptions, similar to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum, were made possible by the Ordinals protocol. It allows data to be "inscribed" onto individual satoshis, or "sats" (the smallest unit of BTC at 1/100,000,000 of a full bitcoin), making each one unique and potentially valuable. <a href="https://ift.tt/PYy6WLH" target="_blank">Read more</a>.

JUMPING SHIP: Ethereum's place near the top of the crypto market is unquestioned from the perspective of market cap. Beneath the surface – at the product, developer and decision-making levels – the original smart contracts platform continues to take a beating from Solana, one of its closest competitors. Ethereum and its many closely-linked networks are still the most important, influential, and largest platforms for decentralized finance. That lead is beginning to erode, however, with many newcomers to crypto choosing Solana's speed and low fees. The dynamic was further punctuated Monday with news that longtime Ethereum ecosystem developer Max Resnick was moving into Solana's orbit, abandoning his job at the developer studio Consensys. "There's just so much more possibility and potential energy in Solana," Resnick said in an interview with CoinDesk. He framed the decision as rooted in his own career path, but noted "frustration" with Ethereum's inability to adapt contributed to the move. Ethereum lacks a streamlined process for making quick changes. Some see that as a point of strength for a decentralized network, while others, like Resnick, see it as a hindrance for long-term success. <a href="https://ift.tt/jfi9aeL" target="_blank">Read more</a>

MOST INFLUENTIAL: This week, for the tenth time, CoinDesk has selected the people who defined the year in crypto: Our <a href="https://ift.tt/q3PBrjA" target="_blank">Most Influential list</a>. (Here was <a href="https://ift.tt/DEUyQK1.." target="_blank">the first edition in 2015</a>.) Most Influential highlights personal achievements in the last calendar year. People are chosen for their projects, ideas, leadership, personality, or notoriety. There is a top 10 of the most Most Influential – people we feel had outsize influence or led the most important projects. Then, we profile another 40 people who were only a little less influential. (Certain prominent people in crypto – Vitalik Buterin, say – would naturally be Most Influential every year. But we choose not to feature the same names each time.) Among the tech luminaries we highlighted in this year's series were <a href="https://ift.tt/l9qy8oc.." target="_blank">Solana's Lilly Liu</a>, <a href="https://ift.tt/0gF8BJv" target="_blank">Optimism's Jin Yang</a>, <a href="https://ift.tt/zRx7Peu.." target="_blank">EigenLayer's Sreeram Kannan</a>, <a href="https://ift.tt/5ZUL4fP.." target="_blank">BitVM's Robin Linus</a>, <a href="https://ift.tt/Wc0GntD.." target="_blank">Rootstock's Sergio Lerner</a>, <a href="https://ift.tt/vVpLKbJ" target="_blank">TON's Steve Yun</a>, <a href="https://ift.tt/aHM7Jti" target="_blank">NEAR's IIlia Polosukhin</a>, <a href="https://ift.tt/r1Dxai7.." target="_blank">Akash Network's Greg Osuri</a>; <a href="https://ift.tt/UrXd2Dm" target="_blank">Bitcoin's Taproot Wizards founders</a> … and of course, <a href="https://ift.tt/NR5c9gf.." target="_blank">Satoshi Nakamoto</a>, whose secret identity remains a parlor-game topic after all these years. (Writing that last piece was downright cathartic for me.) Find all the profiles <a href="https://ift.tt/q3PBrjA" target="_blank">here</a>.

WHAT DOES GOOGLE'S QUANTUM COMPUTING CHIP MEAN FOR BITCOIN?

Google’s new quantum computing chip could mean bitcoin (BTC) is finished.

That was the sentiment for some on Monday as the internet giant unveiled Willow, a quantum supercomputer that can perform certain computational tasks in just five minutes that would take classical supercomputers an astronomical amount of time—specifically, 10 septillion years (or one followed by 24 zeroes; a trillion trillion).

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Such an amount of time is greater than the existence of the entire universe at 13.8 billion years.

In superficial theory, such a powerful computer could mean no passwords are safe, encrypted messages are intercepted, nuclear weapons codes are found out, and almost anything can be unlocked by brute-forcing combinations of numbers and letters.

But it isn’t all doom and gloom yet.

While quantum computing does indeed pose significant threats to current security systems, it's not a master key to the universe, at least not right now. And there is no looming threat to Bitcoin, either.

Quantum computing leverages the principles of quantum mechanics, using quantum bits or qubits instead of traditional bits. Unlike bits which represent either a 0 or 1, qubits can represent both 0 and 1 simultaneously due to quantum phenomena like superposition and entanglement. This allows quantum computers to perform multiple calculations at once, potentially solving problems that are currently intractable for classical computers. Willow uses 105 qubits and demonstrates an exponential error reduction as the number of qubits increases. This is a critical step towards building a practical, large-scale quantum computer, said Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

Bitcoin uses algorithms like SHA-256 for mining and ECDSA for signatures, which might be vulnerable to quantum decryption. And the short answer is that quantum computers, even advanced ones like Google's Willow, do not possess the scale or error correction capabilities needed to immediately decrypt widely used encryption methods like RSA, ECC (used in Bitcoin transactions), or AES (used in securing data).

If quantum computers like Willow reach a scale where they can easily factor in large numbers, they could potentially break these encryption schemes, compromising wallet security and transaction integrity. That would require quantum computers with millions or even billions of “qubits” with extremely low error rates, far beyond the current technology.

“Google claims to have demonstrated 'below threshold' error correcting capabilities with their latest quantum chip,” said Chris Osborn, founder at Solana ecosystem project Dialect, in a post on X (formerly Twitter). "'Below threshold' is industry jargon for turning physical qubits, which are noisy, s*itty quantum bits that are basically useless, into logical qubits, which are multi-qubit abstractions that correct for errors & let you actually perform real computation.” he added.

It takes roughly 5,000 logical qubits "to run Shor's algorithm to break encryption. In other words, millions of physical qubits are needed to break encryption. Google's chip today: 105 physical qubits,” Osborn noted.

Until then, cryptocurrencies (and other sectors) have time to develop quantum-resistant algorithms.

<a href="https://ift.tt/fLHqetP" target="_blank">CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE BY COINDESK'S SHAURYA MALWA</a>

Money Center

Hole in the wallet

<a href="https://ift.tt/zUlQYwf" target="_blank">Magic Eden's $5B Token Airdrop Raises Crypto Wallet Security Questions</a>

Deals and grants

<a href="https://ift.tt/EXmiftS" target="_blank">Binance Partners With Circle to Push USDC Stablecoin Adoption Across the Globe</a>

<a href="https://ift.tt/oTW6p2l" target="_blank">Stablecoin Trading Startup Perena Tries Its Luck on Solana</a>

Happy perp-day

<a href="https://ift.tt/toCs02p" target="_blank">As BitMEX Turns 10, the Market Is Still Thankful for the Perpetual Swap</a>

Regulatory and policy

<a href="https://ift.tt/nmq8zp2" target="_blank">El Salvador and Argentina Regulators Sign Agreement to Help Develop Crypto Industry</a>

Calendar

Dec. 4-5: <a href="https://ift.tt/ZJ5hw0x" target="_blank">India Blockchain Week</a>, Bangalore

Dec. 5-6: <a href="https://ift.tt/l3UrLyY" target="_blank">Emergence</a>, Prague

Dec. 9-12: <a href="https://adfw.com/" target="_blank">Abu Dhabi Finance Week</a>

Dec. 11-12: <a href="https://ift.tt/eAS5IVy" target="_blank">AI Summit NYC</a>

Dec. 11-14: <a href="https://ift.tt/5jqQ4gF" target="_blank">Taipei Blockchain Week</a>

Jan 9-12, 2025: <a href="https://www.ces.tech/" target="_blank">CES</a>, Las Vegas

Jan. 15-19: <a href="https://ift.tt/5fn9kNh" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>, Davos, Switzerland

January 21-25: <a href="https://ift.tt/ilFPbsE" target="_blank">WAGMI conference</a>, Miami.

Jan. 24-25: <a href="https://ift.tt/naG2zkE" target="_blank">Adopting Bitcoin</a>, Cape Town, South Africa.

Jan. 30-31: <a href="https://planb.sv/" target="_blank">PLAN B Forum</a>, San Salvador, El Salvador.

Feb. 1-6: <a href="https://ift.tt/k3BxWOC" target="_blank">Satoshi Roundtable</a>, Dubai

Feb. 19-20, 2025: <a href="https://ift.tt/6Z10N29" target="_blank">ConsensusHK</a>, Hong Kong.

Feb. 23-24: <a href="https://www.nftparis.xyz/" target="_blank">NFT Paris</a>

Feb 23-March 2: <a href="https://ift.tt/c6OitX8" target="_blank">ETHDenver</a>

May 14-16: <a href="https://ift.tt/AYQFChr" target="_blank">Consensus</a>, Toronto.

March 18-19: <a href="https://ift.tt/fo3ASO6" target="_blank">Digital Asset Summit</a>, London

May 27-29: <a href="https://ift.tt/TvV8DXo" target="_blank">Bitcoin 2025</a>, Las Vegas.

source https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/12/11/the-protocol-a-quantum-threat-to-bitcoin

Magic Eden's $5B Token Airdrop Raises Crypto Wallet Security Questions

Early traders of NFT marketplace Magic Eden's new token ME had a lot to be thankful for – if they could access their airdrops, that is.

In the first minutes of trading Tuesday, the token's fully diluted valuation hit $15 billion. But as more claimants managed to process their airdrops – and in some lucky cases, sell – that valuation began to crater. It eventually settled at an FDV around $5 billion.

ME's rocky rollout stood in sharp contrast to other recent token launches. Hyperliquid's HYPE <a href="https://ift.tt/5MyS4kd" target="_blank">token</a> immediately went parabolic after launching in late November. And Move's days-old <a href="https://ift.tt/bvSWPmc" target="_blank">MOVE</a> token had a far more stable rollout – even shooting up at times.

Some observers saw ME's down-only price action as comeuppance for a crypto project whose airdrop processing procedure was highly atypical, and, according to three industry insiders, threatened to breach security best practices.

Magic Eden did not respond to CoinDesk's questions.

Traders who managed to claim thousands of dollars-worth of ME publicly <a href="https://ift.tt/HSAU530" target="_blank">shunned</a> anyone badmouthing their "free money." Others bemoaned <a href="https://ift.tt/CdcTb6S" target="_blank">apparently</a> getting their wallets drained while wading through Magic Eden's convoluted process.

It was a mixed day for Solana's best-known NFT trading platform, which has partly weathered the hollowing-out of crypto's digital collectibles economy by supporting newer, flashier and more highly-traded NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain too.

Security concerns

The same wallet issues that complicated ME's launch also could threaten user privacy, according to one industry source who asked not to be named.

Magic Eden earmarked ME tokens for NFT traders as a reward for their past business. To get their airdrop, those traders had to either import the private keys from their qualifying wallets into Magic Eden's wallet app or create a new wallet on Magic Eden's app and link it to their old ones. The latter action potentially creates a privacy-busting link between previously unaffiliated wallets.

Usually, crypto apps are content to let their users claim airdrops within their wallet of preference. Of course, most apps don't pair their token launch with an in-house wallet. The process doubtless boosted adoption of Magic Eden's new wallet.

Nevertheless, CoinDesk found a number of atypical security practices within the Magic Eden wallet. It keeps a backup of users' recovery phrases and private keys on-app with no clear route to delete that information. While this makes the service more user-friendly, it also goes against established norms in wallet design and security.

"It's a very bad idea to store this stuff" anywhere digitally, be it locally on one's own device or – even worse – remotely on a company's servers, said Ogle, a pseudonymous crypto-security sleuth. It's not clear exactly where Magic Eden is storing the wallet recovery information.

The process also opened up airdrop claimants to attack from bad actors who might pretend to be Magic Eden.

Wallets created within Magic Eden's app cannot easily be transferred to other wallet applications. CoinDesk attempted to recover a Magic Eden-created wallet on Phantom by using the Magic Eden-provided 12-word recovery phrase. This process resulted in the control of a completely different address.

An industry source said it had to do with Magic Eden's reliance on a different tech setup than other leading wallets. It can be overcome by importing the private key, which is nestled deeper in Magic Eden's app settings.

Not-so-savvy users might attempt to move their Magic Eden wallets to a different app using the 12 word recovery phrase alone.

"They are not going to be finding any money in there," the insider said, predicting such users would panic, and perhaps incorrectly assume their money was gone for good.

source https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/12/10/magic-edens-5-b-token-airdrop-raises-crypto-wallet-security-questions

XRP Rallies 10% as Ripple's Stablecoin Gets Regulatory Approval, CEO Garlinghouse Says

XRP, the native token of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) network, surged during the U.S. afternoon hours on Tuesday as Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the company's much-anticipated stablecoin obtained regulatory approval from the New York Department of Financial Services.

"This just in…we have final approval from NYDFS for RLUSD! Exchange and partner listings will be live soon," Garlinghouse <a href="https://ift.tt/qjbQwsZ" target="_blank">posted on X</a>.

XRP rallied 10% following Garlinghouse's announcement in a broader crypto market bounce, erasing today's losses. The token was up 6.8% over the past 24 hours, outperforming bitcoin (BTC) and the broad market <a href="https://ift.tt/3TEaUis" target="_blank">CoinDesk 20 Index</a>. The XRPL network was developed by engineers who later established Ripple, and the company has long been associated with products and services using the token.

Ripple <a href="https://ift.tt/GQdoLz1" target="_blank">laid out its plans</a> in April to enter the quickly growing stablecoin market with its heavily regulated, short-term U.S. government bond-backed cryptocurrency. Stablecoins are a key piece of infrastructure in the crypto economy, and increasingly used for <a href="https://ift.tt/7MhwxQG" target="_blank">global payments</a>, which is one of Ripple's business focuses. The two largest issuers, Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC), currently dominate the almost $200 billion stablecoin market. The sector, however, is <a href="https://ift.tt/etgpv2K" target="_blank">forecasted</a> to grow to trillions of dollars over the next few years, and Ripple is vying for a piece of that.

With RLUSD, Ripple strives to leverage the company's established position for payments services among institutions and serve as a key intermediary for real-world asset tokenization, Ripple President Monica Long told CoinDesk in an <a href="https://ift.tt/S7HA4XW" target="_blank">interview</a> in October. Tokenization is a red-hot trend in crypto to place traditional financial instruments on blockchain rails for more efficient transactions.

RLUSD is in beta testing on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum networks. Ripple's Long said earlier that the token has been "operationally ready," only awaiting approval from regulators for the token's public launch.

There are currently $41.7 million worth of RLUSD tokens on Ethereum and $10.4 million on XRPL, <a href="https://ift.tt/AS8eIJg" target="_blank">data</a> compiled by analytics firm CryptoQuant shows.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/12/10/xrp-rallies-10-as-ripples-stablecoin-gets-regulatory-approval-ceo-garlinghouse-says

Companies Can Now Offer USDT Services in Abu Dhabi

Tether's stablecoin USD₮ has been recognized as an accepted virtual asset in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the company announced <a href="https://ift.tt/8oq4IUX" target="_blank">on Tuesday</a>.

The approval from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority means that companies which are licensed can offer pre-approved USD₮ services in Abu Dhabi's Global Market. Though, the release did not say what those approved services might be. CoinDesk reached out to Tether for comment.

Tether 's USD₮ exceeded a $138 billion market cap but the company wants to continue advancing its growth, the statement said.

“By bringing USD₮ to the forefront of ADGM’s regulated virtual asset framework, we are not only validating the importance of stablecoins as critical tools for modern finance but also opening new doors for collaboration and growth across the Middle East,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, in a press release.

The United Arab Emirates has been praised for <a href="https://ift.tt/P7oItg6" target="_blank">being a crypto hub</a>. Abu Dhabi, its capital, started regulating crypto activities including those <a href="https://ift.tt/pdGYvSZ" target="_blank">undertaken by exchanges and custodians in 2018</a> ahead of most regulators. The European Union will begin enforcing <a href="https://ift.tt/0QX84b5" target="_blank">its rules in the coming days</a> and the <a href="https://ift.tt/aRbpf6E" target="_blank">U.K. by 2026</a>.

Circle, another stablecoin issuer, is also diving into the Middle East after <a href="https://ift.tt/5P3U64D" target="_blank">incorporating a company in the ADGM</a>, it said in a statement.

source https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/12/10/companies-can-now-offer-usdt-services-in-abu-dhabi

XRP, Dogecoin Dive 12% as Altcoin Carnage Leads to Highest Bullish Liquidation in Nearly 3 Years

Major tokens and midcaps registered one of their worst days in recent months with a sharp drop during early Asian hours on Tuesday, even as bitcoin (BTC) was relatively little changed. XRP, dogecoin (DOGE) and Cardano’s ADA fell as much as 15% in the past 24 hours, data shows, as selling pressure mounted in late U.S. hours and amplified in early Asian time. Bitcoin dropped 3%, while ether (ETH) and Solana’s SOL fell 7%, as tron's TRX nearly reversed all of last week’s gains with a 17% haircut. Overall market capitalization dropped by 6.5%, largest drop since October, while the broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index slumped 7%. No immediate reason spurred the selling pressure, but it came on the back of internet giant Google announcing benchmark tests on its new Willow quantum computing chip — which led to market concerns about what it meant for crypto privacy and wallet security. Market analysts and traders warned of short-term selling pressure amid an overheated market after a November rally, as CoinDesk <a href="https://ift.tt/hWESgPK" target="_blank">reported earlier</a> Monday. The fall led to over $1.5 billion in longs, or bullish bets, being liquidated, the highest such figure since 2021. Altcoin futures tracked under “Others” by data provider CoinGlass led market losses at $560 million in an unusual move, with doge and XRP futures losing more than $70 million each.

Some market watchers pointed out that the selling pressure first rose from U.S.-listed Coinbase, with an unusual market impact on XRP and metrics indicating that traders were over-leveraged. “Something absolutely strange happened,” widely followed quant trader @ltrd_ said on X. “On a large, relatively mature market, we witnessed a cascade of big sell orders that caused the market to drop by over 5%. We don't know exactly what happened, but it's certainly unusual.” “You can see that those sell orders are not normal…Perhaps a major player was forced to sell as if there were no tomorrow,” they added.

A liquidation occurs when an exchange forcefully closes a trader's leveraged position due to the trader's inability to meet the margin requirements. Large-scale liquidations can indicate market extremes, like panic selling or buying. A cascade of liquidations might suggest a market turning point, where a price reversal could be imminent due to an overreaction in market sentiment.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/12/10/xrp-dogecoin-dive-12-as-altcoin-carnage-leads-to-highest-bullish-liquidation-in-nearly-3-years

Crypto Crumbles in Broad Selloff Led 20% Declines Across Numerous Altcoins

A slow bleed in crypto since late in the weekend accelerated into the early evening U.S. hours on Monday, leaving nearly the entirety of the sector sharply lower.

With prices in quick retreat, bitcoin (BTC) at press time had fallen back to just above $95,000, down about 5% over the past 24 hours. Ether (ETH) was down 10% to $3,590.

The broader <a href="https://ift.tt/7QE52Md" target="_blank">CoinDesk 20 Index</a> was lower by more than 8% over the same time frame, led by roughly 20% dives for Cardano (ADA), Avalanche (AVAX), and XRP (XRP).

Over $750 million worth of leveraged derivatives positions were liquidated across all digital assets over the past day, <a href="https://ift.tt/VbgjRPr" target="_blank">CoinGlass data </a>shows, the ovewhelming majority of which were bullish bets. That puts today's flush almost on par with the August 5 crash and just trailing last Thursday's wild swing when BTC plunged to $90,000 from above $100,000.

There are some signs of waning momentum on the crypto markets, including declining exchange volumes and heavy profit-taking by long-term holders, analytics firm 10x Research pointed out in a Monday morning note.

"This is likely to be only a brief consolidation phase before the bull market regains momentum," 10x Research founder Markus Thielen wrote in the report. "However, traders should now pay close attention to which positions are outperforming and which are underperforming, as the rally enters a phase where not everything will continue to rise.

"To navigate this market effectively, traders should steer clear of weaker segments and focus on their core, high-conviction positions," he added.

Traders on the options markets are increasingly positioning themselves for sideways price action until year-end, taking profits on their earlier bullish bets and potentially rolling positions out to early next year, digital asset hedge fund QCP noted in a Monday morning report. "Although we’re still structurally bullish, spot [price] is likely to range here for the remainder of the holiday season," the authors wrote.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/12/09/crypto-crumbles-in-broad-selloff-led-20-declines-across-numerous-altcoins

Crypto Groups Push Ads, Letters to Oppose Democrat's SEC Commissioner Nomination

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission member Caroline Crenshaw is "even more extreme" than Chair Gary Gensler, according to a digital <a href="https://ift.tt/MntzJwm" target="_blank">advertising campaign</a> now being launched by Cedar Innovation Foundation — a dark-money group funded by unnamed crypto interests.

Commissioner Crenshaw, who is set to be the lone Democrat atop the SEC when Republicans take over the agency and wider administration in late January, was nominated for another term earlier this year, but <a href="https://ift.tt/nl3k4eN" target="_blank">the confirmation</a> hadn't come up for a vote before the November election. Now, the Senate Banking Committee has scheduled a <a href="https://ift.tt/4sX2GYV" target="_blank">hearing on Wednesday</a> to consider that nomination.

Several digital assets organizations have deployed in an effort to block her approval. Cedar Innovation Foundation underlined in a statement that Crenshaw had opposed the approval of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds and has criticized crypto markets as "a 'petri dish' of fraud." The Blockchain Association and other lobbying groups have sent letters to the Senate lawmakers urging a rejection of the commissioner, whose current five-year term has expired, leaving her serving in a buffer period that could last until the end of 2025.

The Senate's banking panel is led by Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat who was targeted by about $40 million in crypto-industry campaign spending and lost his seat to a blockchain businessman, Bernie Moreno. But Brown still has the gavel until the Senate changes hands next year. 

The Blockchain Association <a href="https://ift.tt/BWivpT4" target="_blank">sent a letter to Brown</a> and the panel's ranking Republican, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, and argued that "her actions have undermined Congress's clear mandate to establish sound regulatory policies for crypto." The DeFi Education Fund similarly <a href="https://ift.tt/fIVgt35" target="_blank">contended</a> that Crenshaw's actions are "at odds with this charge."

And Ji Kim, the chief legal and policy council for the Crypto Council for Innovation, <a href="https://ift.tt/GOMAQtv" target="_blank">posted on X</a>, "Commissioner Crenshaw has unfortunately not demonstrated the objective judgment required of agency leaders."

Scott, for his part, asked President Joe Biden to withdraw his outstanding nominations after the election, reiterating this request last Friday.

Read More: <a href="https://ift.tt/Ma69mJy" target="_blank">Another SEC Democrat to Drop Out, Leaving Republicans Running Agency by February</a>

source https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/12/09/crypto-groups-push-ads-letters-to-oppose-democrat-s-sec-commissioner-nomination

Radiant Capital Says North Korean Hackers Behind $50 Million Attack in October

DeFi protocol Radiant Capital has attributed a <a href="https://ift.tt/P04EMtw" target="_blank">$50 million exploit</a> it suffered in October to North Korean hackers.

According to a <a href="https://ift.tt/fXhR0Gl" target="_blank">report published on Dec. 6</a>, the attackers started laying the groundwork for the Oct. 16 attack in mid-September, when a Telegram message from what appeared to be a trusted former contractor was sent to a Radiant Capital developer.

The message said the contractor was pursuing a new career opportunity related to smart contract auditing and was seeking feedback. It included a link to a zipped PDF file, which the developer opened and shared with other colleagues.

The message is now believed to have come from a “DPRK-aligned threat actor” who was impersonating the contractor, according to the report. The file contained a piece of malware called INLETDRIFT that established a persistent macOS backdoor while displaying a legitimate-looking PDF to the user.

Radiant Capital said that traditional checks and simulations showed no obvious discrepancies, making the threat virtually invisible during normal review stages.

Through access to the computers, the hackers were able to gain control of several private keys.

The North Korean link was identified by cybersecurity firm Mandiant, although the investigation is still incomplete. Mandiant said it believes the attack was orchestrated by UNC4736, a group aligned to the country’s Reconnaissance General Bureau. It is also known as AppleJeus or Citrine Sleet.

The group has been implicated in several other attacks linked to cryptocurrency companies. It has previously used fake crypto exchange websites to trick people into downloading malicious software through links to job openings and fake wallets.

The incident followed an earlier unrelated hack against Radiant Capital in January, during which it lost $4.5 million.

source https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/12/09/radiant-capital-says-north-korean-hackers-behind-50-million-attack-in-october

Gauging Bitcoin, XRP Resistance Levels After Record Price Rallies

When assets surge to lifetime highs or multimonth peaks, traders are often faced with the challenge of identifying key resistance levels, the price targets where the market could next take a breather. That's precisely the situation facing bitcoin (<a href="https://ift.tt/8Fo3mlk" target="_blank">BTC</a>) and XRP (XRP) traders.

Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market value, is trading at record highs near $100,000, meaning it's now in uncharted waters. XRP trades at $2.44, with the 2018 record high around $3.30 as the only chart resistance before we enter the price discovery mode like BTC.

One way to identify key resistances is to study the distribution of open interest, the dollar value of active option contracts, at various strike price levels.

On Deribit, the world's leading crypto options exchange, BTC's $120,000 strike call option is the most popular contract at the moment, with a notional open interest of $1.93 billion, according to data source Deribit Metrics.

A strike with the highest open interest often marks a resistance level because call sellers, typically institutions, face significant losses if prices rise above that point. As a result, they often act to keep prices from exceeding that level. Conversely, the strike level can also act as a magnet due to the hedging activity of market makers or entities tasked with creating order book liquidity.

Recall that before and immediately after the U.S. election, the $100,000 call was the <a href="https://ift.tt/oYxzOBS" target="_blank">most preferred</a> in terms of notional open interest. The price has now consolidated around the six-figure mark.

At press time, the call option at the $100,000 strike is still the second-most popular contract, with open interest of $1.8 billion. It is followed by the $110,000 strike call, which boasts open interest of $1.68 billion.

We can also see that $500 million is locked in the $200,000 strike call, representing a bet that the bitcoin price will double. Most open interest is concentrated in the June 2025 and September 2025 expiries. Analysts at Standard Chartered say they expect the price to reach that level by the end of 2025.

Key levels for XRP

In XRP's case, the $1 call option is the most popular strike, with over $3 million in open interest. The option is deeply in-the-money, or in profit, as the cryptocurrency currently trades near $2.42.

The focus now is on the $2.8 call option, where traders have locked in $2 million in open interest. The next potential target is at $5. The so-called deep out-of-the-money call is the third-most active open, with open interest of $1.12 million.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/12/09/gauging-bitcoin-xrp-resistance-levels-after-record-price-rallies

Ripple's Garlinghouse Says 2024 Election Was a Chance to 'Educate Voters'

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse in an interview with 60 Minutes, said that the 2024 election was a "major victory" for crypto as the majority of Fairshake, a crypto political action committee (PAC), backed candidates, <a href="https://ift.tt/fEyhS0B" target="_blank">won their seats.</a> And this was a non-partisan effort, as crypto, itself is non-partisan, he argued, pointing to the cross-aisle support for the digital assets bill FIT21. “Of the 29 Republicans and 33 Democrats the industry backed in congressional races, 85% won. It’s incredible,” he said.

“We absolutely helped supercharge the candidates with the money in the coffers… That’s absolutely right,” he said, arguing that, like other industries, they took the electoral cycle as a chance to educate voters. “Do I think we had an impact to elect a Democratic senator in Michigan—Elissa Slotkin? Yes, absolutely. Do I think we had an impact in Arizona? A Democratic senator in Arizona, Gallego? Absolutely,” he continued. While Ripple-supported Fairshake was a non-partisan effort, one of the defining moments during the election was then-Republican candidate Donald Trump's <a href="https://ift.tt/V5rJHls" target="_blank">embrace of crypto</a>, which was a <a href="https://ift.tt/YLpvHr2" target="_blank">transformation from his prior stance</a> where he said he was "not a fan". “I think it’s clear that Donald Trump embraced crypto and crypto embraced Donald Trump,” Garlinghouse said.

source https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/12/09/ripples-garlinghouse-says-2024-election-was-a-chance-to-educate-voters

Amazon Shareholders Push for Minimum 5% Bitcoin Allocation

Amazon's (AMZN) shareholders are urging the company to take a page from MicroStrategy's (MSTR) playbook by diversifying its reserves into bitcoin (BTC) to beat inflation and boost shareholder value.

"Though bitcoin is currently a volatile asset – as Amazon stock has been at times throughout its history – corporations have a responsibility to maximize shareholder value over the long-term as well as the short-term. Diversifying the balance sheet by including some bitcoin solves this problem without taking on too much volatility," according to a shareholder proposal shared by conservative think tank t<a href="https://ift.tt/w3CoJ4m" target="_blank">he National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR)</a>.

"At minimum, Amazon should evaluate the benefits of holding some, even just 5%, of its assets in Bitcoin," the proposal added.

Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market value, has surged 134% this year, topping the $100,000 mark in a move that has outshined every major asset, including gold and the S&P 500. That said, shares in bitcoin holder MicroStrategy have seen even more significant gains, more than 500% versus Amazon's 49% rise.

The shareholders' proposal highlighted MSTR's outperformance, along with BTC adoption by companies like Tesla and Block, while emphasizing that the online retailer has a fiduciary duty to look beyond short-term volatility in assets like BTC, which appreciate more than bonds and add those to its Treasury.

At the end of the third quarter, Amazon had $585 billion in total assets, of which $88 billion represented cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, including Treasury notes, foreign government and corporate bonds. The asset mix isn't adequately protecting the shareholder value, the proposal said.

Last month, the NCPPR submitted a similar shareholder from Microsoft shareholders, <a href="https://ift.tt/6fthID1" target="_blank">urging</a> the tech giant to diversify into bitcoin. Microsoft shareholders are scheduled to vote on their bitcoin consideration proposal on Dec. 10.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/12/09/amazon-shareholders-push-for-minimum-5-bitcoin-allocation

FSOC's Still Worried About Stablecoins

The Financial Stability Oversight Council published its 2024 annual report Friday, addressing various risks and areas of concern within the U.S. and global financial system. As it has done for the past few years, the report highlighted the role of stablecoins and the digital asset sector more broadly — though it stopped short of suggesting FSOC would take any concrete steps toward curbing these concerns.

You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. <a href="https://ift.tt/bND5Hjv" target="_blank">Click here</a> to sign up for future editions.

'Emerging risks'

The narrative

For yet another year in a row, the Financial Stability Oversight Council — a group composed of the U.S.'s financial agency heads — warned that unchecked stablecoin growth could be an issue for the U.S. and global financial systems in its annual report.

Why it matters

The Financial Stability Oversight Council is tasked with ensuring the U.S.'s financial stability, and has for years asked Congress to pass legislation addressing the crypto market. The 2024 report reiterates these concerns.

Breaking it down

For the last few years, FSOC has warned that stablecoins exist outside any sort of federal regulatory framework, and their collective size could pose risks to financial stability. <a href="https://ift.tt/JWaOy6c" target="_blank">Friday's report</a> once again noted that potential risk. At the same time it also urged Congress to pass legislation addressing stablecoins and market structure, much as FSOC's previous reports have.

"Stablecoins continue to represent a potential risk to financial stability because they are acutely vulnerable to runs absent appropriate risk management standards," the report said. "This run risk is amplified by issues related to both market concentration and market opacity."

The report referred to Tether's USDT composing some 70% of the total global stablecoin market as one issue regulators should watch.

The lack of any kind of federal regulatory framework is likewise an ongoing concern, the report said. Some states have frameworks for stablecoins, but this is insufficient for the concerns FSOC has.

"Although a few are subject to state-level supervision requiring regular reporting, many provide limited verifiable information about their holdings and reserve management practices," the report said.

Though FSOC has warned for the past few years that it may have to take whatever actions it can should Congress not act, it's unclear to what extent, if any, it may actually be able to do so. FSOC will be composed of new regulators within the coming months.

"Additionally, many crypto-asset market firms and issuers remain outside of, or in noncompliance with, the U.S. financial regulatory framework," the report said. "As such, the crypto-asset spot market may continue to experience significant fraud and manipulation. The Council recommends that Congress pass legislation that provides federal financial regulators with explicit rulemaking authority over the spot market for crypto-assets that are not securities."

"We have also been addressing emerging risks from significant technological changes," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in <a href="https://ift.tt/JG1mw5C" target="_blank">a prepared statement</a>. "Digital assets and artificial intelligence bring potential benefits such as efficiencies, but also financial risks, cyber risks, and risks from third-party service providers. The Council continues to call for legislation to create a comprehensive federal prudential framework for stablecoin issuers and for legislation on crypto assets that addresses the risks we have identified."

Stories you may have missed

<a href="https://ift.tt/A2OWrPJ" target="_blank">Trump Names Former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins as His Pick for Chair of the Agency</a>: Paul Atkins, the founder and CEO of Patomak Global Partners, an adviser to various crypto projects and a former SEC commissioner, is Donald Trump's pick for chair of the securities regulator.

<a href="https://ift.tt/16xKdcX" target="_blank">DYdX Surges 30% as Trump Names David Sacks as 'AI and Crypto Czar'</a>: Trump also named David Sacks as his pick for an "AI and crypto czar." Sacks is invested in various crypto projects.

This week

Wednesday

15:00 UTC (10:00 a.m. ET) The House Financial Services Committee held a <a href="https://ift.tt/72zMGHj" target="_blank">hearing about technology and finance</a>, serving as a sort of swan song for outgoing committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.).

Elsewhere:

(<a href="https://ift.tt/RVYZ1Li" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a>) Bloomberg has a list of stories its team wished they wrote, and really what it shows is there was a lot of good journalism this year.

(<a href="https://ift.tt/1EkIi5V" target="_blank">The Verge</a>) South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law earlier this week. That lasted for a few hours, after opposition party lawmakers literally <a href="https://ift.tt/7dcTpP6" target="_blank">scaled fences</a> amid <a href="https://ift.tt/7U1JHqz" target="_blank">mass protests</a> against the declaration to end the imposition.

If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at <a href="mailto:nik@coindesk.com" target="_blank">nik@coindesk.com</a> or find me on Bluesky <a href="https://ift.tt/8ZkR2pC" target="_blank">@nikhileshde.bsky.social</a>.

You can also join the group conversation on <a href="https://ift.tt/OqiUHCR" target="_blank">Telegram</a>.

See ya’ll next week!

source https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/12/07/fsocs-still-worried-about-stablecoins

Ending the Treasury Department’s Regulatory Overreach on Crypto Mixer Tornado Cash

Cryptocurrency users who crave privacy protections had a lot to be thankful for this past Thanksgiving.

Two days before the holiday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit <a href="https://ift.tt/jtJvlwY" target="_blank">ruled</a> that the Treasury Department’s <a href="https://ift.tt/qEga4AF" target="_blank">Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)</a> had acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner not supported by substantial evidence when it “overstepped its congressionally defined authority” in sanctioning “Tornado Cash’s open-source, self-executing software” instead of “the rogue persons and entities who abuse it.”

In plain English, Congress didn’t give OFAC the power to do what it did: sanction software code owned by no one.

But let’s back up. As I have <a href="https://ift.tt/Nw6obnx" target="_blank">explained</a> for CoinDesk before, Tornado Cash is a crypto mixer that makes it tougher to trace cryptocurrency transactions. There are many legitimate and legal uses of such a service, but there are illegal uses too. For example, cyber criminals and hostile state actors have used Tornado Cash and other services to shield their nefarious acts.

Because of the latter actions, OFAC added many Tornado Cash addresses to its Specifically Designated National and Blocked Persons (SDN) list.

But under the relevant statutory provisions, Congress gave OFAC only the power to sanction the property, including any interest in the property, of certain people.

And here, the court, in an opinion written by Judge Don Willett, said that the immutable smart contracts at issue didn’t constitute property, so OFAC couldn’t sanction them.

The court said “because that element is dispositive, [it] need not address the other elements” at issue in the case. It said that the “district court erred in giving ‘heightened deference’ to OFAC’s definition of ‘property’ and in finding that immutable smart contracts met that definition.”

Because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s <a href="https://ift.tt/Vj2rk9u" target="_blank">Loper Bright</a> decision from last term doing away with Chevron deference — the requirement that courts defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutory (or even regulatory!) provisions — the court said it was engaging in the “unremarkable, yet elemental proposition” of applying its own judgment to determine what a statute means.

Doing that, the court said that under both the plain meaning of property and under OFAC’s regulatory definition of property, the term means something that can be owned. And in this case, the immutable smart contracts at issue did not qualify as property because they cannot be owned.

The court went further, though, and made two points that might have implications for crypto and smart contracts more broadly.

First, the court said the immutable smart contracts at issue are not themselves contracts — despite their misleading name and contrary to what the district court held.

While the district court found the contracts to be “merely a code-enabled species of unilateral contracts,” the Fifth Circuit panel said that in “so finding, the district court ignored basic principles of black-letter contract law.” It explained that all contracts require at least two parties, but here, the immutable smart contracts “have only one party in play” because they are “just software code,” not a party who can contract with another party.

The Fifth Circuit made clear that its decision is not contrary to the “blockchain caselaw,” which indicates that some smart contracts could, in fact, function as contracts because in those other cases, at least two willing parties agreed to enter into the contract. But here, with the ownerless immutable smart contracts, “there is no party with which to contract.”

Second, the court held that the immutable smart contracts at issue are not themselves a service but are “more like a tool that is used in performing a service,” which is “not the same as being a service.”

Finally, the court ended with a note on its proper role within our constitutional system of government. It said that while it “readily recognize[s] the real-world downsides of certain uncontrollable technology falling outside of OFAC’s sanctioning authority,” courts “must uphold the statutory bargain struck (or mis-struck) by Congress, not tinker with it.” It declined to engage in “judicial lawmaking” by mending the “statute’s blind spots or smoothing out its disruptive effects.” It said to do so “falls outside of [the court’s] lane” because “Legislating is Congress’s job — and Congress’s alone.”

It's unclear whether the government will ask the full Fifth Circuit to review the decision or whether it will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review it. Notably, the Eleventh Circuit still has a <a href="https://ift.tt/eqYCytX" target="_blank">similar case</a> pending before it. If it reaches a different conclusion or uses different reasons to reach even the same, or a similar, conclusion, that could motivate the Supreme Court to review the case.

Of course, it will be interesting to see what position the incoming Trump Administration will take on this case too. It may very well be that the new administration will agree that the Biden Administration’s OFAC should not have taken this unprecedented action.

And, of course, Congress could always act too.

So, for now, it’s good news for the crypto community. But the story is far from over.

source https://www.coindesk.com/opinion/2024/12/06/ending-the-treasury-department-s-regulatory-overreach-on-crypto-mixer-tornado-cash

Proof of Operation Chokepoint 2.0

So, now we know. Operation Chokepoint 2.0 was real.

There really was a co-ordinated federal government effort to de-bank crypto following the collapse of three mid-sized crypto-friendly lenders (Signature, Silvergate and Silicon Valley Bank) in March 2023. The crypto industry, led by VC-commentator <a href="https://ift.tt/DiOFPIY" target="_blank">Nic Carter</a>, has long suspected and railed against de-banking. But, until today, we didn’t have much documentary evidence.

Friday morning, internal communications at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp were released after a research firm (History Associates Inc.) hired by Coinbase sued to get them uncovered.

“The heavily-redacted documents emerged on Friday, showing the banking regulator slamming the brakes on lenders offering or considering products and services in the digital assets sector,” CoinDesk’s Jesse Hamilton wrote in <a href="https://ift.tt/2zi8D7B" target="_blank">his report</a> today. 

"We respectfully ask that you pause all crypto asset-related activity," the FDIC wrote in one of 23 internal letters released by Coinbase. "The FDIC will notify all FDIC-supervised banks at a later date when a determination has been made on the supervisory expectations for engaging in crypto asset-related activity."

The FDIC and other regulators have long denied they pressured the three struggling banks to stop banking crypto companies, many of which were suffering following the collapse of FTX and others in late-2022.

"The letters show that this was no conspiracy theory at all, that this was not just rank speculation or the musings of a paranoid industry," Grewal told Hamilton. "There was a concerted plan on the part of the FDIC that they carried out — without any reluctance — to deny banking services to a legal American industry. That should give everyone great pause."

Debanking has been a hot issue recently, after mega-VC Marc Andreessen <a href="https://ift.tt/dCwHkO4" target="_blank">discussed Operation Chokepoint 2.0</a> on Joe Rogan’s podcast. The House Committee on Financial Services heard testimony from several crypto leaders this week attesting to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/eyl2qzHCiW8" target="_blank">difficulties gaining banking services.</a> The heavily redacted letters show FDIC demanding onerous compliance information while being unclear as to what was actually required of the banks before they could approve the provision of financial services to the businesses. Hamilton writes that some letters show the “agency wasn't yet sure what regulatory filings would even be required before it could green-light crypto business.”

Grewal said Coinbase will petition the court to allow the documents to be released unredacted.

Aside from hurting the crypto industry, critics argue financial services are a <a href="https://ift.tt/dCwHkO4" target="_blank">fundamental right</a> and that the federal government should not be able to <a href="https://ift.tt/tqbIxcR" target="_blank">effectively outlaw legal businesses</a>. Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is a reference to an official Obama Administration policy to restrict financial services to payday lenders, gun sellers and <a href="https://ift.tt/gzHcume" target="_blank">other “undesirable” businesses</a>.

It’s now clear that de-banking was as much a matter for crypto as it was for porn, which says a lot about the current administration’s attitude towards it.

source https://www.coindesk.com/opinion/2024/12/06/proof-of-operation-chokepoint-2-0

Binance's BNB Hits Fresh Record, Breaks Out of 3-Year Range as Altcoin Rotation Accelerates

The Binance-adjacent cryptocurrency <a href="https://ift.tt/aw7udBE" target="_blank">BNB</a>, the native token of the BNB Chain, surged to new all-time high price on Wednesday, the latest large-cap crypto to notch fresh records following bitcoin (BTC), solana (SOL) and Tron's TRX as capital rotation to altcoins marches on full steam.

BNB hit a $793 session high earlier Wednesday before paring some of the gains, breaking above the $700-$720 level that posed a resistance more than three years, TradingView data shows. The token recently changed hands at $730, still up 14% over the past 24 hours and outperforming BTC's 0.4% gain and the broad-market benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index's 2.7% advance.

The action happened as bitcoin has stalled below the psychologically key $100,000 mark and traders rotated capital to smaller cryptocurrencies, or altcoins, to chase gains. Older cryptocurrencies with regulatory overhang including <a href="https://ift.tt/4l7spoz" target="_blank">Ripple's XRP</a> and <a href="https://ift.tt/2TdWOxh" target="_blank">TRX</a> were among the biggest gainers over the past month as Donald Trump's election victory promises a friendlier regulatory environment towards digital assets.

BNB was originally launched by crypto exchange giant Binance in 2017 and powers the blockchain ecosystem BNB Chain, formerly known as Binance Smart Chain. It's also used as a <a href="https://ift.tt/mjDz7NM" target="_blank">utility token</a> on Binance to pay transaction costs and receive discounts on trading fees.

The exchange's regulatory troubles weighed on BNB heavily through 2023: Even though crypto markets rebounded towards the year-end, BNB was still at near bear market lows around $200. These pressures have eased by now. Binance's founder and former CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao <a href="https://ift.tt/I2DjeLg" target="_blank">was released from prison</a> in September after he pleaded guilty for violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and served a four-month sentence in the U.S. The exchange also significantly boosted its compliance department, CoinDesk <a href="https://ift.tt/nb9IfrU" target="_blank">reported</a> last month.

The token is also benefitting from the exchange's quarterly token burning scheme, which regularly reduces the token's supply based on the BNB Chain's blockchain activity. Last month, Binance destroyed more than 1.7 million BNB tokens worth $1.07 billion at the time, the exchange <a href="https://ift.tt/SN3BU1e" target="_blank">reported</a>.

User activity also rose in the BNB Chain ecosystem along with prices. Daily active addresses and number of transactions in a day recorded their strongest levels in at least three months, data by <a href="https://ift.tt/f8JaSIr" target="_blank">Artemis.xyz</a> shows.

source https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/12/04/binance-s-bnb-hits-fresh-record-breaks-out-of-3-year-range-as-altcoin-rotation-accelerates