FTX Selling Two-Thirds of Anthropic Stake for $884 Million, SWIFT Announces Phase 2 Results of Tokenization Experiments
Market Update
- U.S. equities are rising in Tuesday trading, with the SPY and QQQ both gaining approximately 0.21%. U.S. durable goods orders rose 1.4% in February, bouncing back after dropping 6.1% in January. The DXY (+0.04%) is flat on the day but remains above $104, while rates are showing modest gains across the curve. Crypto markets are showing slight declines, with $BTC (-0.22%) trading at $69.7k and $ETH (-0.72%) holding above $3,550. It was revealed yesterday that the SEC will seek $2 billion in fines and penalties from Ripple Labs as part of their recent lawsuit. Ripple executive management took to Twitter, addressing the lack of precedent or merit to the SEC’s requests and saying that Ripple would respond with complete trust that the courts would “approach the remedies phase fairly.” $XRP (-1.03%) has not overreacted to the news and remains above $0.63.
- The FTX bankruptcy estate has agreed to sell approximately two-thirds of its Anthropic stake. Anthropic is an artificial intelligence startup with prominent backers like Amazon and Google. Amazon stated it would invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, while Google agreed to invest over $2 billion in October. FTX made a $500 million investment in Anthropic in 2021, representing about 7.8% of the company. As of late 2023, their stake was worth about $1.4 billion. They are selling close to two-thirds of their stake for $884 million to 24 buyers. ATIC Third International Investment Co., a UAE sovereign wealth fund, is the largest buyer, who purchased $500 million worth of shares. Other investors included Jane Street and funds associated with Fidelity. The Anthropic sale is still subject to court approval but marks another significant step in repaying creditors. The FTX bankruptcy estate had about $6.4 billion in cash as of February and is expected to pay creditors back in full.
- SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, announced the findings of its second phase of an industry-wide sandbox testing of its interlinking CBDC solution. The second phase of experiments explored complex use cases such as atomic trade payments and simultaneous transfer of assets. The experiments included over 750 transactions across various networks. The positive results show that its connector can easily facilitate interbank transactions using CBDCs and other digital tokens while institutions leverage their existing infrastructure. Additionally, the findings showed that smart contracts and event-driven programming have the potential for facilitating 24/7 fully automated payments, reducing delays in global trade, enhancing counterparty trust, and lowering transaction costs. The lack of interoperability between tokenization platforms remains a barrier to growth, and SWIFT hopes to mitigate fragmentation across different networks and domiciles.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
Optimism looks attractive following its steep consolidation from short-term overbought conditions which bottomed right at an important area of technical support. It's bounce over the past few weeks looks likely to carry back to test former monthly highs before this peaks and the area near $4.85 looks important as possible near-term resistance. However, movement above this can't be ruled out before any Q2 consolidation of greater magnitude and this likely arrives near $5.05-$5.15 into mid-to-late April. Overall, until/unless $3.00 is violated, minor pullbacks should prove buyable and make $OP an attractive risk/reward on any weakness.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of March 26, 2024 12:30 PM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $1.37T | $69,775 | ↓ -1.15% | ↑ 65% | |
 ETH | $428B | $3,568 | ↓ -1.67% | ↑ 57% | ↓ -8.41% |
 SOL | $83B | $187 | ↓ -3.82% | ↑ 84% | ↑ 19% |
 DOGE | $25B | $0.1758 | ↓ -3.91% | ↑ 97% | ↑ 32% |
 ADA | $23B | $0.6546 | ↓ -1.77% | ↑ 10% | ↓ -55% |
 DOT | $14B | $9.62 | ↓ -1.90% | ↑ 19% | ↓ -47% |
 LINK | $12B | $19.82 | ↑ 1.94% | ↑ 32% | ↓ -33% |
 MATIC | $10B | $1.03 | ↓ -2.60% | ↑ 7.36% | ↓ -58% |
 NEAR | $8.0B | $7.61 | ↑ 0.22% | ↑ 111% | ↑ 46% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| BITW | ↓ -32% | $35.60 | ↓ -4.25% | ↑ 53% | ↓ -12% |
| ETHE | ↓ -20% | $26.61 | ↓ -2.85% | ↑ 37% | ↓ -28% |
News
QUICK BITS
The Block Worldcoin ordered to halt biometric data collection in Portugal: report A project closely tied to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman faces another temporary ban in Europe as Worldcoin attempts to grow signup numbers. |
The Block Crypto exchange FTX is selling two-thirds of its stake in AI company Anthropic for $884 million, according to court documents. |
MARKET DATA
The Block Bakkt reports $780 million in revenue with $226 million net loss in 2023 NYSE-listed cryptocurrency custody and trading platform Bakkt posted $780 million in total revenue but $226 million in net losses in 2023. |
The Block Galaxy Digital reports net income of $302 million for last year’s Q4 earnings Mike Novogratz's crypto lending, trading, mining and banking services firm swung from loss to profit at the end of last year. |
REGULATION
CoinDesk SEC Seeks $1.95B Fine in Final Judgment Against Ripple The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asked a New York judge to impose a nearly $2 billion judgment against Ripple Labs, according to court fili... |
FUNDRAISING AND M&A
Decrypt.co 'Off the Grid' Creator Gunzilla Raises $30 Million Ahead of PlayStation, Xbox, and PC Launch Co-created by film director Neill Blomkamp (“District 9”), the Avalanche-based battle royale shooter Off the Grid is nearing release. |
The Block Modular blockchain developer 0G Labs raises $35 million in pre-seed funding 0G Labs, the developer of a modular blockchain focused on decentralized AI dapps, has raised $35 million in pre-seed funding. |
MINING
CoinDesk Bitcoin Miner Arkon Energy Plans Public Listing in Amsterdam Through Merger With Shell Company The two parties agreed on a 90-day mutual exclusivity period on Feb. 21 to work toward a definitive agreement. |
Bitcoin.com Marathon Introduces Custom Firmware and Control Board for Enhanced Bitcoin Mining Operations This week, the publicly traded mining company Marathon Digital Holdings unveiled new firmware and a control board designed to enhance the efficiency of bitcoin ... |
PRODUCT UPDATES AND PARTNERSHIPS
The Block Paxos, Hashnote partner for PayPal stablecoin and USYC token integration PayPal's stablecoin integration with the yield-bearing USYC token is being rolled out through a new partnership between Paxos and Hashnote. |
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