Binance US Avoids Asset Freeze, Damus Faces iOS Removal Over Bitcoin Tipping
Market Update
- Today’s busy news day kicked off earlier this morning with the release of the latest Producer Price Index. Data came in below expectations at MoM and YoY, likely cementing a pause in interest rate hikes at today’s FOMC meeting. Traditional indices are up slightly in anticipation of the 2:00 PM decision, with the SPY 0.14% (+0.27%) and QQQ -0.07% (+0.31%) at 2023 highs. BTC (+0.29%) and ETH (+0.15%) are rising in a similar fashion, while altcoins are mixed. Bitcoin and Ethereum dominance has risen to 69.5% of the total crypto market cap, the highest level since September 2020. The deterioration of altcoins can be attributed to the lack of regulatory clarity and a flight into BTC & ETH, which are generally seen as commodities versus securities.
- Last week, the SEC submitted a restraining order to freeze all Binance U.S.’s assets as a part of their current lawsuits against Binance. The restraining order stemmed from claims that Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) formerly had access to U.S. customers’ funds. Late yesterday afternoon, a U.S. judge deferred on a ruling, deciding that an asset freeze would “create significant consequences not only for the company but for the digital asset markets in general.” Instead, the SEC and Binance have been directed to work together to develop a mutually agreeable solution to protect customer funds while not disrupting business operations. The two parties are scheduled to update the courts on negotiations by the end of business hours tomorrow.
- Damus, a social networking app built on Nostr is facing removal from Apple’s app store. Damus is integrated with the Bitcoin Lightning Network and enables users to send tips with Bitcoin. The integration allegedly violates Apple’s guidelines by allowing users to bypass Apple’s in-app purchases feature. Apple has given Damus until June 27th to comply with Apple’s terms of service or face removal from the marketplace. The decision from Apple raises questions about the future of decentralized payment networks integrating into iPhone apps and Apple’s stance on peer-to-peer payment technology. The move has sparked significant backlash from the crypto community as many point out that Twitter users can tip via the Lightning Network, and Twitter has not received pushback from Apple.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
Ethereum looks attractive following its recent stabilization at an area of key support. Despite a brief undercut of May lows, ETH is still holding up near $1750 which represents a key 38.2% Fibonacci level of the prior run up from last March along with a 50% retracement of the rally from mid-March lows. While Cryptocurrencies have largely not participated in the rally in risk assets in recent weeks, this looks ready to change in the days ahead. The ability to have held up and avoid a downturn in recent days along with holding near last month’s lows for ETH should help this begin a rally back to highs in the weeks ahead. Movement back over the swing low of $1777 would be constructive for ETH but the act of surpassing $1820 helps to add conviction for long positions for a rally back up to $2400. Despite negative momentum readings on MACD and bearish trends over the last month, the intermediate-term area of trendline support from last November’s lows is very much intact. Bottom line, I expect that downside should prove limited to $1665 for ETH while rallies could carry this to $2400, providing an excellent risk/reward of roughly 6/1.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of June 14, 2023 10:35 AM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $504B | $25,988 | ↑ 0.04% | ↑ 57% | |
 ETH | $209B | $1,741 | ↑ 0.21% | ↑ 45% | ↓ -12% |
 ADA | $9.6B | $0.2741 | ↓ -0.59% | ↑ 11% | ↓ -46% |
 DOGE | $8.6B | $0.0618 | ↑ 0.24% | ↓ -12% | ↓ -69% |
 MATIC | $6.1B | $0.6532 | ↑ 1.55% | ↓ -14% | ↓ -71% |
 SOL | $6.0B | $15.10 | ↓ -0.21% | ↑ 53% | ↓ -4.28% |
 DOT | $5.6B | $4.68 | ↑ 1.48% | ↑ 7.62% | ↓ -49% |
 LINK | $2.8B | $5.37 | ↑ 2.23% | ↓ -3.25% | ↓ -60% |
 NEAR | $1.1B | $1.20 | ↓ -0.64% | ↓ -5.79% | ↓ -63% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↓ -44% | $13.25 | ↑ 1.07% | ↑ 60% | ↑ 2.96% |
| BITW | ↓ -58% | $9.65 | ↑ 0.63% | ↑ 80% | ↑ 23% |
| ETHE | ↓ -56% | $7.43 | ↑ 0.00% | ↑ 56% | ↓ -0.78% |
| BTCC | ↓ -0.14% | $4.78 | ↑ 0.63% | ↑ 58% | ↑ 0.88% |
News
QUICK BITS
BtcEthereum Decentralized Social Networking App Damus Set To Be Removed From Apple’s App Store In a surprising turn of events, Damus, the popular decentralized social networking app built on Nostr, is facing removal from Apple's App Store. Apple claims t... |
Coin Telegraph AWS went down in the US, but Ethereum kept humming Ethereum hummed along through the latest AWS outage but one commentator said its reliance on Lido for staking could ca... |
CoinDesk Binance CEO Hits Back at Rumors of Exchange Selling Bitcoin For BNB Coin Crypto traders on Twitter are citing data that suggests bitcoin has been traded to keep BNB afloat. |
BtcEthereum VC Company A16z Expands to London to Take Advantage of Friendly Web3 Regulation A16z, a tech-focused venture capital company, has announced that it will open its first office in London to take advantage of the friendly regulatory environmen... |
REGULATION
CryptoSlate SEC snubs Coinbase’s seven-day rulemaking request but could act by October The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stated in a June 13 court filing that it has not yet decided on requests from Coinbase. SEC says it hasn’t dec... |
CryptoPotato Judge Rejects SEC’s Request to Freeze Binance.US Assets, Orders Parties to Compromise The court has ordered the SEC to work with Binance on creating a plan that would safeguard assets while allowing the firm to carry out business as usual. |
FUNDRAISING AND M&A
Coin Telegraph AI startup by ex-Meta and Google researchers raises $113M in seed funding The company is on a hiring spree and on the lookout for researchers, software engineers and product developers in AI. ... |
The Block Salesforce Ventures leads $6 million fundraise for NFT data platform Mnemonic Salesforce Ventures said it has seen a lot of enterprise interest in accessing crypto data in order to build digital communities. Th... |
MINING
CoinDesk Bitcoin Miner Crusoe Energy Secures 50 BTC on Newly Launched Liquidity Platform Block Green Block Green aims to unlock liquidity from institutional investors for miners and incentivize green mining. |
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