Here’s What You Missed in Crypto This Week

As bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies get increasing attention from investors, Wall Street and its traditional banks continue to adjust to the shift. Catch up on this week’s top stories highlighting the intersection of these old guard and new school areas of finance with this recap compiled by The Fly.

COINBASE APPROVED TO OFFER CRYPTO FUTURES TRADING: Coinbase (COIN) announced Wednesday that Coinbase Financial Markets has secured regulatory approval from the National Futures Association, a CFTC-designated self-regulatory organization, to operate a Futures Commission Merchant and offer eligible US customers access to crypto futures from its platforms. The company said, “This is a critical milestone that reaffirms our commitment to operate a regulated and compliant business and be the most trusted and secure crypto-native platform for our customers. Coinbase will now be the first crypto-native leader to directly offer traditional spot crypto trading alongside regulated and leveraged crypto futures, on an integrated trading solution for our verified customers.” (read more)

Additionally on Monday, Coinbase announced its official launch in Canada. The company said, “Today we’re making several exciting announcements together with local banking and payment partners that will help make crypto more accessible to millions of Canadians: first, we are expanding our offerings in Canada with the completed roll-out of Interac payment rails, empowering all Canadian Coinbase users to seamlessly deposit and withdraw funds to and from their Coinbase wallets through Interac e-transfers. Additionally, Canadian Coinbase users can also try Coinbase One with a complimentary 30-day trial, featuring zero trading fees, boosted staking rewards, and priority support. And later this year, we will enable direct bank transfers over EFT for users to enable seamless deposits, withdrawals, and high value daily transaction limits.” (read more)

PAYPAL TO PAUSE CRYPTO SALES IN UK: PayPal (PYPL) will stop allowing customers in the U.K. to buy cryptocurrencies through its platform from October to comply with new rules on crypto promotions, Reuters’ Elizabeth Howcroft reported Wednesday. The “temporary pause” will begin October 1 and the company plans to work on satisfying the new regulations, which comes into effect on October 8, according to an email seen by Reuters. The company expects to re-start in “early 2024.” (read more)

COINDESK LAYS OFF STAFF: CoinDesk, a cryptocurrency-focused media firm, is cutting 16% of its internal workforce, the Wall Street Journal’s Vicky Ge Huang reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. The move follows a previous WSJ report that an investor syndicate is nearing a deal for the company, which would have an enterprise value of roughly $125M. Digital Currency Group, which bought CoinDesk in 2016, is expected to keep a stake in the firm’s media, events, data and indexes business as part of the transaction. (read more)

BIT DIGITAL REPORTS Q2 EARNINGS: On Tuesday, Bit Digital (BTBT) reported second quarter adjusted earnings per share of 2c on a revenue of $9M, which compared to analyst estimates of a loss per share of (9c) on a revenue of $10.48M. The company earned 318.4 bitcoins during the quarter. BTC equivalent of digital asset holdings as of June 30 was approximately 1,573.4 BTC, or approximately $48M. “The second quarter of 2023 was a transitional quarter for Bit Digital as we exited certain legacy hosting relationships, forged new strategic partnerships, and began to execute on our growth initiatives,” the company said. “As of June 30, 2023, our mining operations were approximately 99% carbon-free, a significant improvement from the prior quarter and nearly achieving our goal for our mining operations to become entirely carbon-free. We continue to believe that our industry can only reach its full potential if we remain leaders in environmental sustainability, and Bit Digital intends to lead by example. We expanded existing hosting relationships and forged new partnerships during the quarter, which represented approximately 35 MW of additional mining capacity. We concurrently announced the purchase of new miners to fill this capacity and continue to canvas the market for attractive opportunities to deploy capital and expand our fleet. We expect to reach our 2.6 EH/s goal for our active fleet by the end of October 2023, and we now expect to reach 3.5 EH/s by the end of December 2023. Our balance sheet remains debt-free, and we maintain a healthy liquidity position. We will continue to balance future growth aspirations with our goal of remaining financially flexible into the ‘halving’ in 2024.” (read more)

TERAWULF REPORTS Q2 RESULTS: On Monday, TeraWulf (WULF) reports Q2 loss per share of (8c) on a revenue of $15.5M, which compared to analyst consensus of a loss per share of (3c) on a revenue of $19.17M. The company self-mined 908 bitcoin in the quarter, an increase of 70% over bitcoin self-mined in Q1. “We continue to execute our stated goals, delivering strong results in Q2 2023. Based on the continued hard work and commitment of our people, we achieved our target of 5.5 EH/s of capacity in the second quarter,” stated CEO Paul Prager. “As we move into the third quarter, we are actively expanding our Lake Mariner facility by 60% with the addition of 43 MW of infrastructure and 18,500 of the latest generation S19j XPs. This near-term expansion will further establish TeraWulf as one of the most efficient mining fleets in the sector with a realized average cost of power of 3.5v per kilowatt hour and average availability in excess of 98%. We continue to reiterate that not all exahash is created equal. With this expansion, we are strategically adding efficient and profitable hashing capacity thereby positioning the Company for increased profit margins ahead of the next halving.” (read more)

CRYPTO STOCK PLAYS: Publicly traded companies in the space include Bit Digital, Coinbase, Core Scientific (CORZ), Greenidge Generation (GREE), Marathon Digital (MARA), MicroStrategy (MSTR), Riot Platforms (RIOT), Stronghold Digital Mining (SDIG) and TeraWulf.

PRICE ACTION: As of time of writing, bitcoin dropped roughly 11% this week to $26,280 in U.S. dollars, according to CoinDesk.