Coinbase Receives Approval for Crypto Futures, Binance Shutters Payments Product
Market Update
- Traditional equity indices are continuing this week's decline, with the SPY 0.14% and QQQ -0.07% both down over 0.40%. The minutes from the last FOMC meeting are to be released at 2:00 PM EST today, which should shed some light on what the Fed thinks about inflation and the likelihood of another rate hike in September. The market is currently pricing the probability of a September hike at 11.5%. BTC (-0.43%) and ETH (-0.42%) are declining with equities today while most altcoins are seeing much larger drawdowns. SHIB has been one of the better performers in August, rising 14%, as the launch of layer-2 solution Shibarium has been teased to launch this month and potentially today. A keynote speech titled “Shibarium & The End Game” is scheduled for 5:30 PM today at the Blockchain Futurist Conference.
- Coinbase has received regulatory approval from the National Futures Association (NFA) to operate a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) and offer its customers access to crypto futures products. Crypto futures enable users to leverage capital and express long and short positions. These are essential aspects for crypto traders and investors, which is evident in crypto derivatives representing approximately 75% of all global trading volume. Coinbase originally applied with the NFA in September of 2021, so it has been a long grueling process, but Coinbase is proud to now be able to offer eligible U.S. customers access to crypto derivatives. Offering direct access to spot crypto trading alongside regulated crypto derivatives on the same platform is a significant step in affirming Coinbase as the crypto market leader. The new service should have a non-negligible impact on Coinbase’s trading volumes, and Coinbase’s stock, COIN 4.06% , reacted positively to the news, opening up over 3% before paring gains throughout the day.
- Binance plans to shutter its crypto payments service Binance Connect (formerly Bitfinity). Binance Connect enabled merchants to accept payments in crypto. The service was launched in March 2022 to help traditional businesses modernize their payment rails and increase the utility of holding crypto assets. Binance Connect supported over 50 cryptocurrencies as well as other major payment methods such as Visa and Mastercard. Binance periodically reviews all its products and services to ensure its resources are aligned with its long-term strategy, but it decided to halt the product in an effort to increase focus on its core products. Payments is a sector that has struggled to gain significant traction and find the right product-market fit, as traditional businesses have been slow to adopt crypto as a form of payment. Binance’s token, BNB is down 1.54% following the announcement.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
Bitcoin's downturn to multi-day lows likely means that Cryptocurrencies are beginning to join the weakness having been seen in US risk assets. This is directly coinciding with some of the cyclical weakness that normally can occur in August. However, realized volatility has proven very compressed, and despite some minor weakness, intermediate-term uptrends remain intact. Pullbacks to $28,575 look possible which line up with early August lows. Movement under that level would bring about a likely retest of the uptrend from January, which currently intersects near $28k. This is an important area as it's provided a meaningful floor to prices on both prior retest attempts. Recent drawdowns continue to appear short-term in nature only, but yet prices undercutting $29.1k did eliminate the bullish possibility of 8/8's gains being an important bullish turning point. Near-term, fractional weakness looks likely, but until/unless larger uptrends are broken, BTC should still find strong support near $28k in the weeks ahead.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of August 16, 2023 1:18 PM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $566B | $29,097 | ↓ -0.63% | ↑ 76% | |
 ETH | $219B | $1,821 | ↓ -0.93% | ↑ 52% | ↓ -24% |
 ADA | $9.6B | $0.2735 | ↓ -5.21% | ↑ 11% | ↓ -65% |
 SOL | $9.5B | $23.27 | ↓ -5.84% | ↑ 135% | ↑ 59% |
 DOT | $5.7B | $4.72 | ↓ -4.60% | ↑ 8.50% | ↓ -67% |
 LINK | $3.7B | $6.85 | ↓ -5.47% | ↑ 23% | ↓ -52% |
 NEAR | $1.2B | $1.23 | ↓ -7.05% | ↓ -3.40% | ↓ -79% |
 DOGE | $0.0000 | $0.0001 | ↑ 0.00% | ↓ -100% | ↓ -175% |
 MATIC | $0.0000 | $0.0000 | ↑ 0.00% | ↓ -100% | ↓ -176% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↓ -25% | $19.40 | ↓ -1.31% | ↑ 134% | ↑ 58% |
| BITW | ↓ -49% | $12.36 | ↓ -0.80% | ↑ 130% | ↑ 55% |
| ETHE | ↓ -37% | $11.01 | ↓ -0.45% | ↑ 131% | ↑ 56% |
| BTCC | ↓ -0.03% | $5.30 | ↓ -0.75% | ↑ 75% | ↓ -0.72% |
News
QUICK BITS
Bitcoin.com Bank of America Assesses Significance of Paypal’s USD Stablecoin and Fednow System Bank of America has provided its analysis of Paypal’s U.S. dollar stablecoin and the Fednow payments system. The bank does not expect the widespread adoption of... |
REGULATION
CoinDesk 3AC Founders' OPNX Fined $2.7M by Dubai Crypto Regulator The exchange was formally reprimanded by the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) in May. |
Bitcoin.com Singapore Announces Stablecoin Rules, MAS to Label Regulated Tokens The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) unveiled regulations aimed at ensuring the value stability of each stablecoin regulated in the city-state. Under the n... |
BTC Manager PayPal announces halt on UK crypto purchases PayPal has announced that it will temporarily pause crypto buying services in the UK starting from Oct. 1, 2023, with a planned resumption in early 2024. The la... |
CoinDesk Coinbase Finally Wins Approval to List Crypto Futures in U.S. The approval makes Coinbase the first crypto-first platform to offer regulated and leveraged crypto futures alongside alongside traditional spot trading. |
FUNDRAISING AND M&A
CoinDesk BitGo Raises $100M After Scrapping Prime Trust Deal: Bloomberg The raises comes nearly two months after BitGo ended its plan to buy beleaguered rival Prime Trust. |
NFTS
Decrypt.co Adidas and BAPE Team for Ultra-Limited Sneakers With Digital Twins Just 100 pairs of the Adidas Originals Triple-White Forum 84 BAPE Low will be auctioned via NFT passes, which can be redeemed for the kicks. |
MINING
BTC Manager Blockstream to raise $50m to expand ahead of next BTC halving Major crypto mining firm Blockstream looks to raise $50 million to acquire mining equipment in anticipation of the next Bitcoin (BTC) halving. During a recent i... |
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