In Markets
August was not a great month for prices, with Bitcoin falling 8.7% and ETH and SOL losing more than 20% each. Unfortunately, history suggests September is usually hit with an average loss of 6%. That said, US interest rate cuts are finally expected to be cut later this month, and Rekt Capital says in previous halvings, Bitcoin broke out about 150-160 days afterwards, which would be late September. He also notes that average October returns are 22.9%. As far as this week’s price action goes, Bitcoin is currently down 6% from seven days ago to trade at around A$87,342 (US$59,611), while Ethereum is down 5% to trade at around A$3,750 (US$2,559). Solana collapsed 14% as the memecoin degens decamped, XRP lost 4%, Cardano lost 9%, despite (or perhaps because of) its Chang hard fork, and Dogecoin was down 12.1%. Understandably, sentiment has dropped to low levels, with the Crypto Fear and Greed Index at 26, or Fear.
In Headlines
Crypto poll says all the way with Trump
A Fairleigh Dickinson survey of US voters found that 50% of crypto owners support Donald Trump, while 38% support Kamala Harris. However, given that the trend is reversed among the much larger group of non-crypto owners, the support won’t prove decisive. “Trump has been reaching out to the crypto community, and it seems to have paid off,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson. “It might be easy to dismiss them as insignificant, but I don’t think people realise exactly how widespread crypto ownership is.” About 15% of those polled said they owned or had previously owned crypto, with ownership higher among men, black voters and Hispanics, who the Republican party has traditionally found hard to reach. Trump, meanwhile, has been promoting his sons’ new “high yield” DeFi platform called World Liberty and claims he has a “plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet.”
Monkey JPGs and Cryptodickbutts may be securities
The SEC’s war on crypto continues despite the political manoeuvrings, with the regulator firing a Wells notice to the NFT platform OpenSea. The notice indicates a plan to sue the platform, alleging some NFTs are actually securities. OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer said he was “shocked the SEC would make such a sweeping move against creators and artists” and said such arguments “misinterpret the law”. The SEC is also currently suing Robinhood, Coinbase and Kraken. This week it also decided to suggest it may or may not challenge FTX using stablecoins to repay creditors which has thrown a spanner in the works of that repayment plan.
Crypto millionaires doubled in past year
According to data from Henley and Partners published in Barrons, the number of crypto millionaires worldwide has almost doubled in the past year to June to 172,300. There are 325 centimillionaires ($100M+, up 79%) and 28 billionaires (up by one-third) out of a worldwide total of 560M crypto users (up 32%).
Cardano gets forked
Cardano has successfully completed the Chang hardfork, which essentially hands governance of the project over to ADA holders. Founder Charles Hoskinson said Cardano is the largest layer 1 blockchain ever to decentralise governance in this way, and means the Foundation, IOHK and Emurgo will no longer have the keys to trigger upgrades. Cardano remains one of the top ten projects if you exclude stablecoins and wrapped tokens. While it has a devoted community, daily active addresses of around 40,000 do not suggest it has been picking up the required adoption.
What if they had an ETF and nobody turned up?
On Friday, tumbleweeds blew through the Ethereum ETFs, with 0 inflows and 0 outflows for the nine ETFs. That doesn’t mean there was completely zero activity, but it suggests there wasn’t much, and the inflows and outflows for each ETF cancelled each other out. Overall, the week saw net outflows of US$12.4M (A$18.3M). While outflows from Grayscale are finally dwindling to a few million each day, inflows into BlackRock’s ETHA have also dried up, with only one day of inflows all last week. On the Bitcoin front there was lots of activity, but it was all negative – US$277.2 million (A$408.7M) outflows.
Time Magazine and El Salvador
El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele made the front cover of Time magazine this week. In the article, he admitted that the much-touted Bitcoin Law hasn’t been the stunning success he’d envisaged. “Bitcoin hasn’t had the widespread adoption we hoped for. Many Salvadorans use it. The majority of large businesses in the country have it,” Bukele said, pointing out the government had never forced anyone to use it. He added that Bitcoin had improved the country’s branding and brought in many tourists. It’s clear he’s still a Bitcoiner: “I’m not going to say it’s the currency of the future, but there’s a lot of future in that currency.”
SEC goes to Washington for a grilling
The US House of Representatives’ financial-services committee is set to launch a series of hearings into the crypto industry this month, including DeFi (September 10), SEC oversight of crypto… and the implications of Pig Butchering Scams (September 18). Gary Gensler will face the committee once again on September 23, but this time, he’s bringing the whole band of five commissioners, which is highly unusual.
Australian crypto ATMs grow 17x
If you’ve noticed more crypto ATMs around the place you’re not alone. According to Coin ATM Radar, the number has jumped 17x in the past two years, from just 67 in August 2022 to 1,162. TRM Labs said on X the Aussie ATM boom was “the most significant expansion of the cash-to-crypto industry over the last few years.” While Australia is now the world’s third largest market for crypto ATMs, we still have just 3% of the entire market, with the US accounting for 82% (31,877 machines) and Canada 7.8% (3,004 machines). TRM Labs said that crypto ATMs saw about 1.2% of illicit volume (scams and frauds), which is double the rate of the broader crypto ecosystem.
Singapore tops crypto adoption globally
Singapore leads global cryptocurrency adoption, followed by Hong Kong and the UAE, thanks to its strong regulations, innovation, and technology, according to Henley & Partners. This sentiment was echoed by Lasanka Perera, CEO of Independent Reserve Singapore, in a recent interview with Hubbis: “Singapore has been exemplary in its approach, striking a balance between fostering innovation and ensuring investor protection. This supportive environment has attracted significant capital inflows and business operations, positioning Singapore as a critical hub in the global crypto landscape.” In the latest IRCI 2024, 40% of Singaporeans are crypto owners.
Vitalik: An Ethereum Story at Event Cinemas George Street
The world premiere of the feature documentary “Vitalik: An Ethereum Story” will be screening at 505/525 George St, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia. Tickets can be purchased here. The documentary chronicles Vitalik Buterin and Ethereum’s community’s fight for an open internet accessible to all.
