Coinbase's stock skyrocketed as the world learned about their partnership with BlackRock.
Starbucks makes a splash in Web3.
And global Polygon utilization escalates as it inches closer to $1 on the charts.
My name is Justin.
This is your nightly crypto news wrap-up.
Let's get it!
Negative news leading to bearish price action has been the story so far in 2022.
Wait.
Shhhh.
Listen.
Do you hear that?
That's the sound of the bulls running.
Now, I'll give it to you straight.
The most bullish news of the year broke earlier this morning.
And the implications are astounding.
The news is that the world's largest asset manager BlackRock,
who manages around $9 trillion worth of funds,
has partnered up with Coinbase to offer crypto to their institutional investors.
Remember how the Elon story last year started with a massive sell-off?
Well, this is the type of news that could trigger a big run-up.
Maybe not at first,
but the door is now open,
and big money is standing at the welcome mat.
Starting with Bitcoin,
Coinbase Prime,
their institutional broker platform trusted by over 13,000 clients,
will open the door to institutional whales for Aladdin,
which is BlackRock's investment manager platform.
In response to the news, Coinbase's stock absolutely exploded!
It was trading around $60 at the start of the month,
and within 4 days, it shot up 90%.
The stock went up 35% within minutes of the news breaking.
Not only is this bullish for Coinbase and BlackRock,
but it's bullish for anyone in retail who buys Bitcoin before the whales put their chips on the table.
As pods of institutional whales wait at the welcome mat,
crypto's push for mainstream adoption gets amped up for a morning brew.
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz revealed during a recent Q3 earnings call
that the Seattle coffee giant will soon premiere a Web3 digital initiative
as an addition to their customer loyalty program.
Although they are yet to reveal the exact details about the program,
Schultz stated that they're integrating their digital Starbucks Rewards ecosystem
with Starbucks-branded digital collectibles as both a reward and a community-building event.
Now, back in April, Starbucks announced their plans to enter the NFT space
in an effort to appeal to their younger demographic.
But we're going to have to wait for their Investor Day on September 13 for the full reveal.
Now, I will not be breaking the door down to buy an Iced London Fog NFT,
but I do appreciate how much attention this initiative will bring the NFT community.
There are over 33,000 Starbucks locations around the globe
and over 15,000 of them right here in America.
Every week, Starbucks serves about 60 million people.
That's 60 million sets of eyes that are going to walk through those doors
and learn about Web3 and NFTs.
We're no longer tiptoeing to mass adoption.
We're about to start sprinting.
Of all the coins in crypto,
Polygon's price action has been particularly impressive.
From the bottom of the sell-off in June to its local top on the last day of July,
MATIC has shot up over 200%.
Some of the move up can be attributed to whale accumulation
in light of the introduction to their zero-knowledge rollups
that are compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine known as zkEVM.
This brilliant innovation ensures scalability while allowing projects to run on Ethereum.
If you don't know,
zk-rollups are used to speed up a transaction validation process
without increasing gas fees.
Since they were first to figure out how to combine this ability with the security of the EVM,
it paid off big in the charts.
Since the zkEVM rolled out,
MATIC pumped over 30% in 10 days!
MATIC's utilization in the real world is another reason people are so bullish on it.
Finbold ran a story this morning
that the Indian Maharashtra State Board of Skill Development
gave out 100,000 diplomas to their students
using the Polygon blockchain through a platform called LegitDoc.
When you pair Polygon's progress in blockchain innovation
with its undeniable ability to translate that innovation into real world utility,
what you get is a project that should be in everyone's portfolio.
MATIC is on the verge of breaking back above that psychological $1 level.
And if its next move up is anything like its run-up in this last year,
there's no telling how high it could go.
Where do you think Polygon's price will be by the end of the year?
Let us know down in the comments.
That's all I got.
Have yourself a great rest of the night.