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.

GENESIS DIGITAL ASSETS CONSIDERS U.S. IPO: Genesis Digital Assets is considering an initial public offering in the U.S. as the crypto industry’s resurgence gathers pace, Bloomberg’s David Pan reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The crypto mining company, which counts Sam Bankman-Fried’s former hedge fund Alameda Research as an investor, is working with advisers on the potential listing. The company plans to raise a pre-IPO funding round that’s set to launch as soon as in the coming weeks, one of the people said. The publication noted the company received over $1B worth of investment from the venture arm of Alameda, which was controlled by Bankman-Fried before his empire unraveled. (COIN) to provide custody and advanced trading services for the agency’s “Class 1” digital assets, which it manages centrally in support of federal law enforcement. The company said, “The USMS conducted a competitive due diligence process that evaluated a range of solutions, ultimately choosing Coinbase due to our strong track record and ability to securely provide institutional-grade crypto services at scale.” Coinbase added, “Coinbase has a longstanding history of supporting law enforcement agencies, dating back to the founding of our law enforcement program in 2014. Today, Coinbase works with every major U.S. federal, state, and local law enforcement agency, as well as international agencies on every continent. Growing the cryptoeconomy means promoting safe and efficient markets, and these partnerships are critical to our mission.” (read more)

ROBINHOOD CONSIDERS LISTING CRYPTO FUTURES: Robinhood Markets (HOOD) is considering offering cryptocurrency futures in the U.S. and Europe in the coming months, Bloomberg News’ Olga Kharif and Paige Smith reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the commission-free investing and trading platform’s plan. Once its $200M acquisition of Bitstamp closes next year, Robinhood is hoping to use the Luxembourg-headquartered crypto exchange’s licenses to offer perpetual futures for bitcoin and other tokens in Europe, according to the people. It also wants to launch CME-based futures in the U.S. for bitcoin and ether, the people said. (read more)

CLEANSPARK PRICE TARGET RAISE: Cantor Fitzgerald raised the firm’s price target on CleanSpark (CLSK) on Wednesday to $28 from $27 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares after the company reported a current hashrate of 20.4 EH/s, which the firm noted is a 13.5% month-over-month increase from 17.97 EH/s in May. The firm, which says it continues to believe CleanSpark is “the best growth story across the bitcoin miner universe,” is increasing its 2024 revenue estimate by 0.2%, driven by a 4.8% increase to its year-end hashrate estimate. (read more)

TERAWULF INITIATED WITH BUY: Roth MKM initiated coverage of TeraWulf (WULF) on Tuesday with a Buy rating and $6.50 price target. TeraWulf has built a transparent, low-cost, efficient, and scaled bitcoin mining business and the shares offer investors “an attractive investment opportunity in the growing energy demand for digital infrastructure,” the analyst contended. The firm believes its power portfolio, which potentially can be leveraged for High Performance Computing infrastructure, if scaled, could bring “tremendous value creation via higher degrees of revenue/profit visibility,” the analyst said. (read more)

Additionally on Friday, Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brett Knoblauch raised the firm’s price target on TeraWulf to $10 from $9 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares after the company released its June operations update and reported it self-mined 177 bitcoin in the month. The firm expects TeraWulf to increasingly pivot attention towards the opportunity in AI/HPC as 2024 comes to a close and expects the Street to continue to reward the stock with re-rating upside given this shift in focus, the analyst said. (read more)

CRYPTO STOCK PLAYS: Publicly traded companies in the space include Bit Digital (BTBT), 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 about 8% this week to $55,616 in U.S. dollars, according to CoinDesk.