Bitcoin is rising again – Crypto weekly update

This week, the total market capitalization exceeded 1.76 trillion EUR. Increase at the 7-day interval is 16.55 %. Bitcoin increased by 17.27 % during the week to a current value of over 38,700 EUR. Bitcoin dominance is 41.5 %.

Bitcoin is rising again

Cryptocurrency investors have been having a really rough time in recent months.

Bitcoin has plunged more than 50% from its November all-time high in the last two months and hit a six-month low of $33,000 at the end of January.

However, during the last week, sentiment in the cryptocurrency market has significantly changed. Bitcoin finally started to climb up, and even tried to get back the $45,000 price level. He has not broken this significant resistance, but the sentiment in the market has significantly changed due to its bullish movements.

Crypto bulls managed to achieve another important milestone throughout the past 48 hours by reclaiming the coveted $2 trillion mark for the total market capitalization. This comes on the backs of the recent gains in BTC as well as some altcoins like Ethereum, Avalanche and Cardano.

February’s investment report by Bloomberg Intelligence argued in favor of bitcoin investment. Despite the most recent price slumps, bitcoin’s price could still be headed toward a six-digit territory, stated in the report. Growing demand and global adoption, advancing technology and no supply elasticity should ensure that bitcoin is a good investment. Source

NASDAQ will list Valkyrie ETF

Crypto asset manager Valkyrie will have an exchange-traded fund (ETF) with exposure to Bitcoin mining firms available for trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market starting Tuesday.

A Valkyrie spokesman said in an interview with Cointelegraph that the fund called “Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF” will begin trading on Tuesday under the ticker WAGMI. However, this investment fund will not offer direct exposure to Bitcoin but will target securities of companies that derive at least 50% of their revenue or profits” from BTC mining or providing the hardware or software related to mining.

The filing added that 80% of the funds will be invested in these companies, while Valkyrie would invest up to 20% of the ETF’s net assets in companies holding “a significant portion of their net assets” in Bitcoin.

Valkyrie also launched one of the first Bitcoin futures ETFs in October, offering investors indirect exposure to bitcoin. Source

KPMG invest in cryptocurrencies

KPMG Canada, a global network of consulting firms that provides audit, tax and advisory services, announced on Monday that it has directly invested in the two most largest cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The Canadian arm of the accounting giant said in a Monday statement that the investment reflected their “belief that institutional adoption of crypto assets and blockchain technology will continue to grow and become a regular part of the asset mix.”

KPMG did not say how much they invested but added they bought carbon offsets to maintain a net-zero carbon transaction.

The company joins a club of giants such as Microstrategy, Tesla and Square, which started adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets last year. Source

FBI arrests two connected in Bitfinex hack

Authorities in the United States have made arrests and announced the seizure of $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency more than five years after hackers stole 119,756 BTC from the Bitfinex exchange.

In a Tuesday announcement, the U.S. Department of Justice said it had ordered the arrest of Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife Heather Morgan for allegedly conspiring to launder crypto connected to the 2016 Bitfinex hack. At the time, 119,756 bitcoins worth $72 million were stolen from the exchange, but their value has increased enormously over the years.

Since the 2016 hack, individuals connected to the stolen coins have periodically moved small amounts of BTC in separate transactions, leaving the bulk of the funds untouched. However, the U.S. Department of Justice announced yesterday that special agents were then able to gain access to and seize more than 94,000 BTC — worth $3.6 billion at the time — from Morgan and Lichtenstein after a search warrant allowed them to view files containing private keys to the wallet.

“Today’s arrests, and the department’s largest financial seizure ever, show that cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.

Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the DoJ Kenneth Polite added that federal authorities had the ability to “follow money through the blockchain.” The announcement stated that Morgan and Lichtenstein used a variety of methods to launder the illicit crypto, including chain hopping, creating fake identities, depositing the coins at exchanges and darknet markets and much more.

Investigative teams said they had been working to track down the hacking since 2016. Though neither agency specified how authorities were initially led to Morgan and Lichtenstein, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said the agency had “the tools to follow the digital trail.” Source

Ukraine and Bitcoin

A new report by Elliptic, an on-chain blockchain analysis company, shows that Ukrainian NGOs have recently seen a sharp rise in bitcoin donations.

These aren’t charities to fight poverty or spread social justice. We’re talking about pro-Ukrainian hacktivists and military organizations.

Per the report, in response to government corruption, local NGOs have begun securing financial support for soldiers, weapons, and medical supplies over the last decade. Elliptic says that donors are using Bitcoin to funnel money to such NGOs, bypassing any banks and financial institutions that might block payments.

Elliptic says Ukraine didn’t originate the idea. Ukrainian organizations are taking the idea from pro-Russia groups, who began using Bitcoin fundraising as early as 2014. However, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency only make up a small portion of the funding flowing into Ukraine. Most of the funds are fiat currencies through traditional payment systems. Source

Tesla in profit

Electric car maker Tesla, one of the first institutional investors, held about $2 billion worth of bitcoins at the end of 2021.

In a 2021 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday, Tesla stated that the fair market value of bitcoins held by the company as of December 31, 2021 was $1.99 billion. The filing also said Tesla sold some of its bitcoins in March 2021 with a profit of $128 million.

The Twitter channel Documenting Bitcoin said that if Tesla hadn’t made a $1.5 billion purchase of bitcoin, but kept the cash instead, inflation would have caused that the purchase power of money would be just $1.3 billion at the moment. It follows that Tesla’s investment in BTC perfectly protected its funds from inflation. Source

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