Crypto prices are blasting off today.
The catalyst?
Who really knows.
It could be the Fed’s statement that they don’t plan to ban bitcoin or crypto or that
the long awaited Bitcoin ETF is on the horizon as some SEC comments suggest.
In Filecoin news, the storage platform is donating $5.8 million to the Freedom of the
Press association and we’ll tell you why in just a second.
Stay with us as we break it all down on this week’s Exodus Crypto News
Like a wayward son who joins a rock band instead of becoming a lawyer, Gary Gensler is shaping
up to be crypto’s biggest disappointment.
We all thought it would be great to have a guy in charge of the SEC who actually understands
blockchain, but so far Gensler is something of a disappointment.
For example, the SEC recently shut down Coinbase’s lend program, a program which was going to
give users 4% interest on their dollar deposits.
Sounds great right, especially when most bank accounts don’t give you any interest on
your savings at all…
But I guess it didn’t sound so good to Gensler since the SEC brought the regulatory smackdown
and Coinbase was forced to give up their plans.
So while the SEC hasn’t done much to help the crypto industry so far…
Approving a Bitcoin ETF would be a step in the right direction, and that approval might
not be so far off after all.
Although everyone in crypto has been talking about a Bitcoin ETF for years, international
competition is one reason why some people are saying that it’s finally going to happen.
Canada has already approved both a Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF, and several European countries
like Switzerland and France also have crypto ETFs and ETPs.
The longer the United States puts off approving its own Bitcoin ETF, the more money will flow
out of America and into these international products.
That’s a factor that the SEC must be considering.
Then there’s the fact that on several occasions, including just a few days ago, Gary Gensler
has said that he could see the SEC approving a Bitcoin ETF at some point in the future.
The only catch is that the ETF wouldn’t hold physical Bitcoin, instead it would be
based on Bitcoin futures contracts.
According to Gensler, an ETF based on futures contracts would provide more investor protections
than an ETF holding the underlying coins.
Even though this type of ETF might not be what anyone really wants, the market still
seems to be taking the news well.
Although we rarely know for sure what’s driving the price of Bitcoin, some analysts
are saying that Gensler’s comments about the ETF are the reason that BTC is up 10%
in the last week.
And then there’s the latest comment from fed chair Jerome Powel.
Earlier in the week re reported on China banning BTC and some were worried the US might follow
suit.
When asked directly, Jerome Powell said the Fed has “ No intention” of banning bitcoin
or crypto.
In terms of the overall market structure, Bitcoin just bounced hard off the 200 day
moving average at about $41,800.
The 200 day is an important market indicator for longer term trends, and the fact that
Bitcoin held the line suggests that we’re still in a bull market uptrend.
As long as BTC keeps above $42,000 it’s more likely that the next big move will be
to the upside, and the SEC approving a Bitcoin ETF could be just the thing we need to take
us higher.
On another bullish note, even though the Bitcoin price hasn’t been doing much lately that
hasn’t stopped buyers from accumulating crypto.
According to blockchain metrics, large funds have scooped up more than 3,000 Bitcoins in
the last month, indicating that there’s still a healthy amount of institutional interest
in BTC.
Hopefully these big buyers will keep coming in and take Bitcoin to new highs before the
end of the year!
In a world overrun with powerful surveillance tools, journalists need a way to communicate
that can’t be monitored or shut down.
Enter Filecoin…
The Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web, or FFDW for short, has announced that
they’re giving $5.8 million to the Freedom of the Press foundation.
The money will be used to build out SecureDrop, an open-source platform that enables anonymous
communications over the TOR network.
SecureDrop is already popular with large platforms like
the New Yorker and the Washington Post, and with better functionality it could attract
even more users from around the world.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation will also work with FileCoin to invent new ways of storing
website content indefinitely, so that information cannot be taken down by a corporation or the
government.
The FileCoin grant is the largest that the Freedom of the Press Foundation has ever received,
and it’s a great example of how blockchain platforms can contribute to developing privacy
preserving technologies that benefit everyone.
Thanks for watching everyone, make sure to hit those Like and subscribe buttons, and
until next time hodl on!