Ethereum breaks $1,900 as they finish trial runs of the Merge on their testnet.
The IRS and SEC are cracking down on crypto.
And BlackRock's clients now have the option to have direct exposure to Bitcoin.
My name is Justin.
This is your nightly crypto news wrap-up.
Let's get it!
Choo! Choo!
Things are steaming up!
And if you don't already have your ticket,
get one and get on board before the Ethereum Express leaves the station.
Now, it no longer matters that the Merge was delayed for all this time.
What matters is, now, the work has been put in.
And as of yesterday, all three of the practice merges on the testnet are complete.
In mid-September, the new era of Ethereum and crypto as a whole will commence.
I'm ready.
Are you?
A plethora of investors believe that the Merge will act as a catalyst
for the beginning of the next bull run.
And considering Ethereum has more than doubled in price in anticipation of the Merge,
it's hard to argue that Ethereum isn't at least in somewhat of an accumulation phase.
Ethereum has jumped up over 12% in the last day alone,
adding over $25 billion to its market cap!
The recent spike is partly because of the Merge hype, obviously,
but the macro conditions have also played their own role.
The CPI numbers coming in lower than expected have helped all markets,
Bitcoin and crypto included.
And since the last interest hike from the Fed was also lower than expected,
over $250 billion have jumped into the crypto market cap in the past 30 days.
Do you think that quarter of a trillion dollars jumped in the market just to jump back out?
No.
These are buyers that are serious.
And they know what the space is capable of.
And after the Merge, my bet is it will do just that.
As whales and retail alike are building their stacks to take profits on the next run up,
a few government agencies have another agenda.
It's as simple as this.
Uncle Sam wants his cut.
And if you don't play by his rules,
you're going to pay for it one way or the other.
We already know that back in March, the IRS launched Operation Hidden Treasure
to catch those out there who didn't pay their taxes on their crypto.
More recently,
the IRS is putting pressure on crypto dealer SFOX and their partner M.Y. Safra Bank.
Bloomberg reports they're putting out a summons for account and transaction records
for anyone involved in crypto transactions over $20,000 from 2016 to 2021.
This is obviously part of a larger push by all agencies and regulators
to crack down on crypto, control it and, of course, get their cut.
While the IRS is trying to vacuum up crypto money to help fund government spending,
the SEC is now serving subpoenas to Coinbase.
And the SEC claims that nine tokens on the exchange are unregistered securities.
The SEC probe has come to light since Coinbase filed their quarterly report,
which also showed that they lost over a billion dollars in Quarter 2.
Time will tell what will come of the subpoenas.
But if Coinbase got the regulatory clarity that they've been asking for,
and if the SEC didn't regulate by enforcement,
none of this would be happening in the first place.
Coinbase's chief legal officer stated in a blog that
they were caught off guard by the SEC threatening "to sue without ever telling us why."
Classic SEC move!
Uncle Sam can't expect crypto to play by the rules if they don't know what the rules are!
You know, until a subpoena lands on their desk.
Egregious!
Despite regulatory uncertainty because of their partnership with Coinbase Prime,
BlackRock recently launched a private trust that gives their institutional clients
the opportunity to have direct exposure to Bitcoin.
This is the first trust of this nature.
And this is unbelievably bullish for Bitcoin!
BlackRock stated,
"Despite the steep downturn in the digital asset market,
we are still seeing substantial interest from some institutional clients
in how to efficiently and cost-effectively access these assets
using our technology and product capabilities."
That's because, in the past, those institutional clients were stuck in stocks
while crypto was pumping to the moon.
Now, they want in.
Can you blame them?
Well, that's all I got.
Have a great rest of your night.