Coinbase Receives a Wells Notice, Consensys Launches Institutional Staking Marketplace
Market Update
- Markets are rallying today following yesterday’s FOMC meeting where the Fed unanimously decided to raise interest rates by another quarter point. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 have both risen over 1%, while US Treasury yields and the US dollar are showing declines. $BTC (+4.25%) and $ETH (+5.24%) are displaying strength amid Arbitrum’s native token launch ($ARB), which has injected over $1 billion of fresh capital into the crypto ecosystem. Token claims went live at 9 AM EST, and heavy user traffic crashed both the Arbiscan and Arbitrum Foundation websites. $ARB initially traded down from $5 to roughly $1.10 but has since stabilized around $1.25, giving it a circulating market cap of approximately $1.6 billion. This puts Arbitrum in the top 40 coins by market cap right off the bat. It will be interesting to watch if the airdrop leads to sustained ecosystem activity, as yesterday marked the most daily transactions in Arbitrum’s history, reaching over 1.3 million.
- Late Wednesday afternoon, Brian Armstrong tweeted that Coinbase has received a Wells Notice from the SEC regarding staking products and asset listings, implying that Coinbase has been listing unregistered securities. Wells Notices typically precede legal action, and Coinbase will have the opportunity to present its case to the SEC on why the SEC’s assumptions may be misplaced. A Coinbase blog post on the matter explains that the SEC has already thoroughly examined Coinbase’s listing process and expresses the company’s disappointment in receiving clear guidance from regulatory agencies. Coinbase met with the SEC 30 times over nine months in 2022 regarding registering parts of the exchange’s business with the SEC. They were expected to have a meeting in January where they would receive feedback on their proposals, but the SEC canceled on short notice. Coinbase reaffirmed that it will stand up for customers and the industry by defending itself in court if necessary.
- Consensys, the company behind MetaMask and MetaMask Institutional, is launching its own staking marketplace. The market will allow institutional investors to choose between Consensys’ staking service, Consensys Staking, or its partners’ Allnodes, Blockdaemon, and Kiln. One of the major draws of the new marketplace will be the standardized terms and conditions across staking services. This will make it easy for fee rates to be viewed and compared. Additionally, the marketplace will coincide with new MetaMask Institutional features such as portfolio management, digital asset monitoring, and built-in P&L and performance tracking. The new products come as the Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade is just a few weeks away. If all goes well, Ethereum staking should be largely de-risked, attracting more institutional capital toward the service. Consensys hopes to “start laying a foundation where you’ll see more and more institutions offer data validation into the network,” increasing the overarching security of the blockchain.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
Cardano has rapidly gained ground to levels that lie just below the most important area of resistance for its technical pattern since last Summer. As daily $ADA charts show below, prices have found strong resistance near the current downtrend no fewer than three times and now are rapidly approaching this area once again that could have importance. It's thought that until $0.43 can be exceeded on consecutive daily closes, ADA might stall out again and begin a mild pullback. However, the improvement in momentum is favorable to its intermediate-term prospects. Furthermore, the limited pullback into March was immediately followed by a rapid move back to test this important resistance. Overall momentum is positively sloped but not overbought. The ability to clear February's peak at 0.43 will be the technical catalyst to jump-start a larger advance. Upside targets above 0.43 lie at 0.46, then $0.51, each which could allow for a stalling out of this rally. Dips in the weeks to come should be buyable with support materializing near $0.34-$0.36.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of March 23, 2023 1:09 PM
All Funding rates are on bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $548B | $28,348 | ↓ -0.88% | ↑ 71% | |
 ETH | $223B | $1,823 | ↑ 1.32% | ↑ 52% | ↓ -19% |
 ADA | $13B | $0.3790 | ↑ 1.25% | ↑ 54% | ↓ -18% |
 DOGE | $10B | $0.0779 | ↑ 2.33% | ↑ 11% | ↓ -60% |
 MATIC | $10.0B | $1.14 | ↑ 0.67% | ↑ 50% | ↓ -21% |
 SOL | $8.6B | $22.48 | ↓ -1.01% | ↑ 127% | ↑ 56% |
 DOT | $7.5B | $6.38 | ↑ 2.11% | ↑ 47% | ↓ -24% |
 LINK | $3.9B | $7.53 | ↑ 0.36% | ↑ 36% | ↓ -36% |
 NEAR | $1.8B | $2.06 | ↑ 2.23% | ↑ 62% | ↓ -9.27% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↓ -39% | $15.98 | ↑ 5.97% | ↑ 93% | ↑ 22% |
| BITW | ↓ -57% | $10.73 | ↑ 3.97% | ↑ 100% | ↑ 29% |
| ETHE | ↓ -54% | $8.41 | ↑ 7.00% | ↑ 77% | ↑ 5.56% |
| BTCC | ↑ 0.01% | $5.26 | ↑ 6.69% | ↑ 74% | ↑ 2.48% |
News
QUICK BITS
CoinDesk The Reality Behind the Crypto Banking Crackdown: ‘Operation Choke Point 2.0’ Is Here Banking enforcement targeting legal crypto businesses appears to violate the FDIC's mandate. It may also be amplifying financial contagion. |
CoinDesk Avalanche Blockchain's X and C Networks See Brief Outage On-chain data shows that transactions sent over X-Chain are lagging, while C-chain has recovered from an earlier outage. |
MARKET DATA
CoinDesk Arbitrum Daily Transaction Count Hits Record High Ahead of Token Airdrop Arbitrum is decentralizing by launching its governance token ARB. |
CoinDesk Floor Prices for Donald Trump NFTs Surge on News of Possible Indictment Floor prices of NFTs related to the former U.S. president are up double digits since March 17. |
REGULATION
Coin Telegraph FTX seeks to claw back $460M from Bankman-Fried-backed VC firm While the funds represent a small portion of FTX’s overall asset shortfall, the settlement means the firms can avoid a... |
CoinDesk Coinbase Downgraded at Oppenheimer After Disclosing Possible SEC Charges The Wall Street brokerage said it was becoming increasingly worried about the fairness of crypto enforcement actions in the U.S. |
FUNDRAISING AND M&A
The Block BH Digital raises $9 million for its liquid token strategy BH Digital raised $9 million for its Nova Digital Opportunities fund. Nova Digital is a new division with BH overseen by portfolio manager Kevin Hu. ... |
CoinDesk Crypto Platform Ziglu Courting Buyers After Robinhood Deal Collapses: Report Ziglu is also looking to raise around $2.46 million to enable it to continue operating until a sale is agreed |
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