BitDigest July 16 · Issue #701

• Crypto prices slide as social media reports of bitcoin related Twitter attack
• In what is being considered an inside job, verified Twitter accounts for political and business leaders, tech businesses and crypto advocates and exchanges, were simultaneously hacked asking followers to send bitcoin
• Bahamian government finds CBDC could help alleviate economic damage in lessons learned from Hurricane Dorian

Weekly Stock Review

Highlights from the North American listed crypto, blockchain and mining stocks:

• TAAL Distributed Information Technology (OTCQX: TAALF), a bitcoin SV miner, has been added to the weekly update based on its upgrade from the pink sheets to the OTCQX.
• Ebang International Holdings (NASDAQ: EBON) is up 30% over the past 7 days closing at $5.50. EBON traded as high as $8.00 this week increasing average volume by 125%.
• Hut 8 Mining (TSX: HUT.TO) renegotiated terms for its US$20 million credit facility by lowering its interest rate from 9.85% to 8.00% per annum, but increasing its bitcoin collateral from 85% of the loan value to 95%. 
• Grayscale Investments reported that the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTCQX: GBTC) received record inflows of $751.1 million in 2Q20 – the fourth record-breaking quarter in a row for the Trust. The premium to NAV on the offering declined 53% on the week from 15.3% to 7.2%.
• The Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund (OTCQX: GDLC) traded down as low as $6.10 on the week closing down 4.9%. Grayscale Investments reported that it rebalanced the fund increasing the weight of bitcoin (BTC) from 81.0% in Q1 to 81.5% in Q2 and ether (ETH) from 9.6% to 11.7%. Holdings in Ripple (XRP), bitcoin cash (BCH) and litecoin (LTC) were all reduced to 3.6%, 2.0% and 1.2% respectively at the end of the quarter.
• Shares in the Reality Shares Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF (NASDAQ: BLCN) hit a 52-week high this week.

Twitter Attack Not an Attempt to Move Price of Bitcoin

I read a lot about the Twiiter over the past 12 hours and as several people commented, the attacker does not seem like he/she intended to impact the price of bitcoin. The fake tweets could have easily referred to political actions supporting or against bitcoin. For example Joe Bidden could have stated that he intends to use bitcoin to underly a US digital dollar, or worse ban it, but nothing like this was stated, simply “you send $1,000, I send $2,000 back.”

Note: I am going to start identifying reports that I plan to keep as a reference and would recommended BitDigest readers review with the thumbs up sign emoji “👍”

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Market Data

Exchange, Custody and Product News