Daily Archives: May 11, 2022

The crisis with Terra’s stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) and the freefall in Terra’s LUNA token has dented crypto sentiment further. Although Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon announced a relief plan, the community does not seem too hopeful about the revival.

Another hindrance to a quick improvement in sentiment is that the United States Consumer Price Index soared 8.3% from a year ago, outpacing estimates by 0.2%. Although the numbers are a tad bit lower than March’s 8.5% print, the slow deceleration suggests no respite from more tightening by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Although the screen looks scary during capitulation, it also offers one of the best times to go against the herd and accumulate fundamentally strong cryptocurrencies at a bargain. Traders should not be in a hurry to catch a falling knife but wait for the price to stabilize and the capitulation to end before buying in a phased manner.

What are the key levels of Bitcoin (BTC) and major altcoins that could attract buyers? What are the key resistance levels on the upside that may suggest a potential trend change? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin fell sharply on May 9 and attempted a recovery from the psychological level at $30,000 on May 10. The long wick on the day’s candlestick shows that bears are not willing to ease off and they continue to sell on minor rallies.

The bears tried to build upon their advantage on May 11 but the bulls are defending the critical level at $28,805 with all their might. This is an important level to watch out for because if it cracks, the selling could intensify. The BTC/USDT pair could then slide to $25,000 and later to $20,000.

Although downsloping moving averages indicate advantage to sellers, the relative strength index (RSI) in the oversold territory suggests that a relief rally or consolidation is possible.

If the price rises from the current level, it could reach the 20-day exponential moving average (EMA) ($36,214). This is an important level to keep an eye on because if the price turns down from it, the bears will again attempt to sink the pair below $28,805.

Alternatively, if bulls push the price above the 20-day EMA, the pair could rally to the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) ($40,792).

ETH/USDT

Ether (ETH) has reached a strong support level at $2,159. The bulls are likely to mount a strong defense at this level because if the support cracks, the selling could pick up momentum.

If the bounce sustains, the bulls will try to push the price to the 20-day EMA ($2,698). In a downtrend, the bears usually try to stall the relief rallies at the 20-day EMA; hence, this becomes an important level to watch out for.

If the price turns down from the 20-day EMA, it will suggest that sentiment remains negative and traders continue to sell on rallies. The bears will then again attempt to sink the ETH/USDT pair below $2,159. If they succeed, the pair could plummet to $2,000 and later to $1,700.

BNB/USDT

BNB witnessed a sharp fall on May 9 and broke below the strong support at $320. The bulls tried to push the price back above the breakdown level on May 10 but the bears did not relent.

The bears resumed their selling on May 11 and pulled the BNB/USDT pair below the immediate support at $289. If sellers sustain the price below $289, the pair pick up momentum and plummet to $250 and later to $225. The buyers are expected to mount a strong defense in this support zone.

Alternatively, if the price turns up from the current level, the bulls will again try to propel and sustain the pair above $320. If they succeed, it will indicate that the markets have rejected the lower levels. The pair could then rise to $350.

XRP/USDT

Ripple (XRP) witnessed a tough battle between the bulls and the bears near the $0.50 level. Although bears pulled the price below $0.50 on May 9, the bulls reclaimed the level on May 10.

The bears finally overpowered the bulls on May 11 and resumed the downtrend. The XRP/USDT pair dropped to the strong support at $0.40 where the bulls are attempting to arrest the decline.

If the price turns up from the current level, the bulls will again attempt to propel the pair above the overhead resistance zone between $0.50 and $0.55. Conversely, if the price slips below $0.40, the pair could witness further selling and drop to $0.34.

ADA/USDT

Cardano (ADA) tumbled below the strong support at $0.74 on May 9, indicating the resumption of the downtrend. The buyers attempted a recovery on May 10 but failed to hold onto higher levels.

The selling resumed on May 11 and the ADA/USDT pair dipped below the immediate support at $0.58. If the price sustains below this level, the pair could drop to the psychological level at $0.50 and thereafter to $0.40.

On the contrary, if the price rises from the current level, the bulls will try to push the pair back above the breakdown level at $0.74 and the 20-day EMA ($0.77). If they succeed, the recovery could pick up momentum and the pair may rally to the critical resistance at $1.

SOL/USDT

Solana (SOL) dropped and closed below the strong support at $75 on May 9. This signaled the start of the next leg of the downtrend. The bulls tried to trap the aggressive bears by pushing the price back above the breakdown level at $75 on May 10 but the bears held their ground.

The selling resumed on May 11 and the bears pulled the price below the psychological support at $50. If the price sustains below $50, the SOL/USDT pair could extend its decline to $44 and thereafter to $40.

Conversely, if the price turns up from the current level, the bulls will make another attempt to propel the pair above $75. If they manage to do that, the pair could rally to the 20-day EMA ($83).

This is an important level to watch out for because a break and close above it could signal that the bulls are back in the game. The pair could then rally to the 50-day SMA ($101).

DOGE/USDT

Dogecoin (DOGE) broke below the support at $0.12 on May 9 and nosedived to the psychological level at $0.10. The buyers tried to start a recovery on May 10 but hit a wall at the breakdown level at $0.12.

The bears continued their selling and pulled the price below the crucial support at $0.10 on May 11. If the price sustains below $0.10, the DOGE/USDT pair could extend its decline to the strong support zone between $0.06 and $0.04. The bulls are likely to defend this support zone with vigor.

If bulls push the price back above $0.10 quickly, it will suggest strong accumulation at lower levels. The buyers will then try to drive the pair above the 20-day EMA ($0.12). If they succeed, it will suggest that the bears may be losing their grip.

Related: Avalanche drops 30% on fears Terra’s LFG will dump AVAX next

DOT/USDT

Polkadot (DOT) plunged to psychological support at $10 on May 9 and attempted a recovery on May 10 but the long wick on the day’s candlestick shows selling at higher levels.

The selling resumed on May 11 and bears pulled the price below the strong support at $10. If bears sustain the breakdown, it will suggest the start of the next leg of the downtrend. The DOT/USDT pair could then extend its decline to $7.

Conversely, if the price turns up from the current level and rises back above $10, it will indicate strong buying at lower levels. If bulls sustain the price above $10, the possibility of a rally to $14 increases.

AVAX/USDT

Avalanche (AVAX) plunged below the critical support at $51 on May 9 signaling the resumption of the downtrend. The buyers tried to push the price back above the breakdown level on May 10 but the long wick on the candlestick shows that bears flipped the $51 level into resistance.

The AVAX/USDT pair resumed its decline on May 11 and dropped below the crucial support at $32 but the long tail on the candlestick shows strong buying at lower levels. The bulls are expected to defend the $32 level aggressively because if the support gives way, the selling could intensify and the pair may drop to $18.

If the price rises from the current level, the buyers will again try to push the pair to the breakdown level at $51. A break and close above this level could be the first sign that the downtrend may be weakening.

SHIB/USDT

Shiba Inu (SHIB) had been declining gradually for the past few days. The momentum picked up on May 9 and the price slipped below the critical support at $0.000017. This signaled the resumption of the downtrend.

The buyers bought the dip near $0.000013 and pushed the price back above the breakdown level at $0.000017 on May 10. However, the long wick on the day’s candlestick shows that bears are selling at higher levels and attempting to flip $0.000017 into resistance.

If the price sustains below $0.000013, the selling could intensify and the SHIB/USDT pair could decline to the psychological level at $0.000010. The buyers will have to push and sustain the price above the 20-day EMA ($0.000020) to indicate that the selling pressure may be weakening.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Market data is provided by HitBTC exchange.

Bitcoin funding rates had taken a plunge at the beginning of May. While this had not been a pronounced bear trend at that point, the price of BTC was already showing some signs of weakness. That weakness has now seen the digital asset plunge below $30,000 for the first time in 2022 and back up. However, funding rates that had returned to neutral had remained unmoved by this volatility in the market.

Bitcoin Funding Rates Are Unshaken

Bitcoin had seen some massive sell-offs around the $35,000 level. This was mainly triggered by investors panicking that they may lose more of their holdings and as such, had tried exiting the cryptocurrency to mitigate these losses. The resultant fear and liquidations that had erupted had worked together to push the price of the digital asset even further down, and like clockwork, every other thing in the market had followed this downtrend.

Related Reading | Market Downtrend Trigger Bitcoin Inflows From Institutional Investors

Funding rates would prove to be one of the few immune to this downtrend. After recovering from its crash at the start of the month, it had gone back to the neutral level and this is where it stayed even as bitcoin had broken down below $35,000. Even when its price had fallen lower, funding rates had remained unshaken.

Funding rates remain neutral | Source: Arcane Research

This follows the same trend that had been recorded since the December 4th crash. Funding rates had started on a trend of being at or below neutral and have not deviated from this since then. It was obviously the result of negative sentiment across investors which had led to low momentum.

Another group that this is indicative of is the perp traders. These perpetual traders have been following the spot market closely. This is obviously a deviation from the norm because as seen in previous market trends, the funding rates fall when the price of the digital asset falls.

BTC crumbles to $29,000 | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com

This indicates that these perp traders are leaning towards adding more long exposure with the digital asset. Mostly, this is happening near what is perceived to be the bottom of the one-and-a-half-year trading range. 

Related Reading | Shiba Inu Vs. Dogecoin And LUNA: Which One Will Survive The Crypto Carnage?

The average funding rate is pulled from cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Bybit, both of which have proven to have the most presence from perp traders. Even though the whole Terra UST issues, funding rates have refused to budge.

Featured image from The Economics Times, charts from Arcane Research and TradingView.com

ApeCoin (APE), the new cryptocurrency that was recently launched by Yuga Labs, aims to be the bedrock of the Otherside metaverse and recently, the token has experienced massive volatility leading into and after its digital land sale. APE’s price dropped from $26 at the peak on Apr. 28 to $14 on May. 2 — more than a 45% drop within a few days of the mint. The price has now dropped to the $6 range.

Given the current volatility, investors will be wondering if ApeCoin price will ever recover to its previous trading range. Let’s first take a look at the historic price trend, particularly what happened on the Otherdeed mint day; then take a deeper dive into the amount of APE that will be locked and released in the next three years. This will provide a better understanding of the supply and demand dynamics that could affect the price going forward.

ApeCoin surged after the Otherdeed announcement

In the first couple of days since APE’s listing on March 17, 2022, the price jumped from roughly $7 to $17 at the peak ; an increase of 143%! The price had since fluctuated between $10 to $15 until rumors began circulating of the Otherside metaverse land sale.

The chart above shows APE made a sharp move up of almost 24% within a day from $13.16 to $16.30. When the Otherdeed rumours surfaced on Twitter on April 20, APE catapulted to $26 on April 28 after the sale was officially confirmed by OthersideMeta two days prior.

The price of Yuga Lab’s Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and the Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) nonfungible token (NFT) also followed a similar pattern on April 20. MAYC reached an all-time high at 43 Ether (ETH) on April 26, which was the day the sale was confirmed and BAYC started to bounce back from its 105 ETH low to a new all-time high at 168 ETH on May 1.

Chaos ensued as Yuga confused users during the Otherdeed sale

Otherdeed was seen as an opportunity for new investors who have been priced out of BAYC, MAYC and BAKC to become part of the Ape community.

The bullish conviction toward APE was driven by the fact that it is the only currency in the Otherside metaverse and the land sale in the secondary market would also be traded in APE in addition to ETH.

Investors who believed in Yuga Labs and the idea behind the Otherside metaverse rushed to acquire APE in preparation for the mint at the price of 305 APE per plot. The increasing demand for APE as the minting date approached was broadly expected and the increase in price pre-mint was also foreseeable.

What came as a shock later  is how chaotic the whole process of minting Otherdeeds was. APE’s price plunged from $24 to $14 on May 2, which reflected a more than 40% decrease in two days! The immediate price drop to $20 on the day of the mint could be explained by the sudden decrease in demand for APE after the mint started.

A further 30% drop in the following two days is a clear reflection of investors’ loss of confidence in the project after the mint debacle. BAYC and MAYC price also reflected the same sentiment by falling more than the market value of the airdropped Otherdeed.

Despite efforts made by the Otherside team to verify new investors through a Know Your Customer (KYC) process before the mint and to offer the sale at a fixed price, these measures were not enough to prevent a gas war. The information was not clear and sometimes plain wrong prior to the mint and a significant amount of money has been misspent and burnt on gas as a result of the poor communication by Yuga Labs.

What follows are some of the major issues encountered by investors on the day of the mint.

What happened to the Dutch auction?

On April 26, OthersideMeta tweeted that the mint would be a Dutch auction but three days later they changed their mind and said “Dutch auctions are actually bullshit,” a complete pivot and a brutal slap in the face to investors.

A Dutch auction would have been an effective way to mitigate gas wars due to its unique design of a very high start price and a decreasing price over time. Investors could have chosen to mint at the price they could afford at different times, avoiding everyone minting at the same time, at the same price, and creating a gas war.

Mint will be Dutch auction style, so the ApeCoin price will decline over time. The starting price of the Dutch auction will be announced later this week.

— OthersideMeta (@OthersideMeta) April 25, 2022

The delayed mint created additional problems

After the team delayed the mint date, APE price experienced some of the largest hourly downside re-pricings.

The hourly chart below shows APE increased slightly in the first three hours after the originally planned mint time, then dropped from $22 all the way to $18 by the time the actual mint took place at 9 pm EST (1:00 am UTC).

It is hard to say if the delay exacerbated the downward pressure, but the price fluctuation in APE significantly increased the risks taken by investors, especially when the mint was not even guaranteed for the KYC’d wallet holders.

The guaranteed mint for KYC’d wallets vanished

This was the biggest issue and misunderstanding in the whole minting process. Based on Otherside’s article, at the start of the sale (wave 1) each KYC’d wallet would only be allowed to mint 2 plots. Once the gas fee came down, the limit would rise to an additional 4 NFTs (wave 2). Since the number of KYC’d wallets are not disclosed to the public and there is only a fixed amount of plots to mint, it is uncertain whether all KYC’d wallets could mint at least one.

Assuming a maximum of 6 plots of land per wallet given the total of 55,000 plots, to guarantee each wallet can mint at least one plot, the maximum number of KYC wallets allowed should be 9,166.

It turned out there were far more KYC’d wallets than this number and many investors failed to mint anything after paying a very high price to acquire APE and experiencing stratospheric gas fees during the mint.

Gas fees skyrocketed during the actual mint

Waves 1 and 2 were designed to mitigate the gas war by limiting the number of plots each wallet can mint. The problem was the total number of KYC’d wallets was too large. The number of people rushing to mint at the same time was not reduced and gas fees never came down. While the early minted NFTs were selling in the secondary market for two or three times more than the cost of the mint, the demand for further mints and the ferocious gas war continued until all 55,000 plots were gone. Numerous users paid between 2.6 ETH and 5 ETH for gas fees during the process and many lost their entire fee due to transaction failures across the Ethereum network

Related: ETH gas price surges as Yuga Labs cashes in $300M selling Otherside NFTs

Continuous supply increase adds downside pressure to APE price

According to OthersideMeta, all APE earned during the mint will be locked up for one year. This is over 16 million APE (55,000 * 305) taken out of the circulating supply. Will this reduction in supply save the APE price? Unfortunately not. Compared to the amount of APE being unlocked and released into the market every month, 16 million is a drop in the ocean.

Looking at the amount of APE that will be unlocked in the next three years on a monthly basis, the majority of the supply comes from the DAO Treasury and Yuga Labs. There are also three large pumps in supply from the contributors in September 2022, March and September 2023.

On a cumulative basis, the initial amount of APE unlocked at launch day dominates the proportion of supply until May 2025, when it is overtaken by the DAO Treasury. At the rate of 7.3 million APE being unlocked per month for 48 months until 2026, the DAO treasury’s allocation is the main source of additional APE inflation.

Given the estimated circulating supply of APE in April 2022 is around 284 million, the 16 million APE locked up from the Otherdeed land sale is only 5.9%. Such a small amount of one-time supply reduction is unlikely to have a long-lasting effect on the APE price, especially when supply keeps increasing.

Trading volume is the only potential saviour for APE price

In addition to APE’s circulating supply, the trading volume is also a crucial factor in determining the future price. Using the ratio of trading volume to circulating supply (utilization ratio), one can often find a relationship with price.

The chart below uses a simple linear regression to show the correlation between the APE utilization ratio and price. In March 2022 when the circulating supply is relatively small, the higher the utilization ratio, the lower the price. On the contrary, in April 2022 when the circulating supply becomes larger, the higher the utilization ratio the higher the price.

If the positive correlation between the utilization ratio and the price holds true while circulating supply keeps increasing gradually, it seems the only savior for the APE price is an increasing amount of trading volume.

However, APE will struggle to attract more trading volume after the chaotic Otherdeed land sale. Yuga Lab’s tweet about turning off lights on Ethereum and building their own chain seems to have exacerbated the investors’ loss of confidence.

We’re sorry for turning off the lights on Ethereum for a while. It seems abundantly clear that ApeCoin will need to migrate to its own chain in order to properly scale. We’d like to encourage the DAO to start thinking in this direction.

— Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) May 1, 2022

The implications of this tweet are profound. Ethereum has a long, stable track record of security and stability, designed and built by, arguably, the smartest and most established crypto talents in the world. It is more than concerning if Yuga Labs moves away from Ethereum and people have rightly ridiculed this on Twitter.

Yuga’s NFT collections derive their extreme valuations largely because they sit on Ethereum and users trust the network to hold their highly valued NFTs. How would any migration away from Ethereum take place? Would users trust a home grown chain from Yuga Labs? No other chain has tokens trading in the price strata as the blue chips that trade on Ethereum.

It would be reasonable to assume that APE and Ape-related NFTs could significantly re-price from their meteoric valuations if Yuga Labs was to follow through with the idea of managing their own chain to house their collections. We have seen what happened with Axie Infinity on the Ronin chain. APE could be up for a bumpy road ahead.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

The annual meeting of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) began Wednesday in Madrid. United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Gary Gensler and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman Rostin Behnam were both featured as keynote speakers at the event, with Behnam speaking at the morning session, and Gensler in the afternoon.  

Behnam spoke at length about “a request for an amended order of registration as a derivatives clearing organization (DCO) by an entity seeking to offer non-intermediated clearing of margined products to retail participants,” which was transparently a reference to FTX US’s request.

“As other registered entities have expressed interest in exploring similar models, and given the potential impact on clearing members and FCMs [futures commission merchants]” […] it is paramount to be transparent and provide an opportunity to hear from the public,” Behnam said, plugging the CFTC roundtable on the subject coming up later this month.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried may have been listening as Behnam spoke, as Bankman-Fried was present at the conference and participated in a fireside chat a few hours later.

Behnam went on to recall his February Senate testimony and say that:

“I will continue advocating for and supporting legislative authority for the CFTC to develop a regulatory framework for the cash digital asset commodity market.”

Currently, the CFTC only regulates derivatives markets, although it has exerted enforcement authority over cash markets, such as the fine it imposed on Coinbase for improper reporting of exchange volume and “self-trading” in 2021.

Related story: Bipartisan bill to give CFTC authority over exchanges and stablecoins

Gensler spoke about “the intersection of crypto assets with derivatives” in his significantly shorter speech. He said:

“If platforms — whether in the decentralized or centralized finance space — offer security-based swaps, they are implicated by the securities laws and must work within our securities regime.”

Gensler stressed the need for the ISDA “to recognize that if the underlying asset is a security, the derivative must comply with securities regulations” as it develops legal standards for crypto derivatives.

Bitcoin (BTC) price initially bounced from its recent low at $29,000 but the overall market sentiment after a 25% price drop in five days is still largely negative. Currently, the crypto “Fear and Greed Index,” which uses volatility, volume, social metrics, Bitcoin dominance and Google trends data, has plunged to its lowest level since March 2020 and at the moment, there appears to be little protecting the market against further downside.

Regulation continues to weigh down the markets

Regulation is still the main threat weighing on markets and it’s clear that investors are taking a risk-off approach to high volatility assets. Earlier this week, during a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee, United States Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen called for a regulatory framework on stablecoins and specifically addressed the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin plunging below $0.70.

Furthermore, the United Kingdom introduced two bills aimed at addressin crypto regulation on May 10. The Financial Services and Markets Bill and the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill aim to strengthen the country’s financial services industry, including supporting “the safe adoption of cryptocurrencies.”

Meanwhile, searches for “Bitcoin” and “crypto” on Google are nearing their lowest levels in 17 months.

This indicator could partially explain why Bitcoin is 56% below its $69,000 all-time high because the public interest is low but let’s take a look at how professional traders are positioned in derivatives markets.

Long-to-short data confirms a lack of buyers’ demand

The top traders’ long-to-short net ratio analyzes the positions on the spot, perpetual and futures contracts. From an analysis point of view, it gives a better understanding on whether professional traders are bullish or bearish.

There are occasional methodological discrepancies between different exchanges, so viewers should monitor changes instead of absolute figures.

According to the long-to-short indicator, Bitcoin might have jumped 4% since the $29,000 low on May 11, but professional traders did not increase their bullish bets. For instance, OKX’s top traders’ ratio decreased from 1.20 to the current 1.00 level.

Moreover, Binance data shows those traders stable near 1.10, and a similar trend happened at Huobi as the top traders’ long-to-short ratio stood at 0.97. Data shows no demand for leverage buys among professional investors despite the 5% price recovery.

CME futures traders are no longer bearish

To further prove that the crypto market structure has deteriorated, traders should analyze the CME’s Bitcoin futures contracts premium. The metric compares longer-term futures contracts and the traditional spot market price.

These fixed-calendar contracts usually trade at a slight premium, indicating that sellers request more money to withhold settlement for longer. As a result, the one-month futures should trade at a 0.5% to 1% premium in healthy markets, a situation known as contango.

Whenever that indicator fades or turns negative (backwardation), it is an alarming red flag because it indicates that bearish sentiment is present.

The chart above shows how the indicator entered backwardation on May 10 and the move marks the lowest reading in two months at a negative 0.4% premium.

Data shows that institutional traders are below the “neutral” threshold measured by the futures’ basis and this points to the formation of a bearish market structure.

Furthermore, the top traders’ long-to-short data shows a lack of appetite despite the quick 4% price recovery from the $29,000 level and the fact that BTC price now trades near the same level is also concerning. Unless the derivatives metrics show some improvement, the odds of further price correction remain high.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

European crypto investment platform Bitpanda has now launched Bitpanda Staking, offering users the possibility to earn and generate yield on selected cryptocurrencies.

At launch, eleven cryptocurrencies will be available for staking with Bitpanda: ADA, TRX, XTZ, SOL, DOT, MATIC, ATOM, GRT, KSM, NEAR, and LUNA; more staking assets will be added throughout the year.

Staking is a way of earning rewards for putting certain cryptocurrencies to work.

This is possible only for cryptocurrencies that run on a mechanism called “proof-of-stake”, a way to ensure that transactions are verified and secured. Blockchain puts staked cryptocurrencies to good use – they become part of this process and pay back rewards to their holders.

No lock-in period, no warm-up period 

All assets staked on Bitpanda are not locked in and are accessible at any time. With no warm-up period, users earn from the instant they choose to stake their crypto, until the point they choose to unstake.

Weekly rewards starting immediately

Users of Bitpanda will receive staking rewards for their staked assets once a week, independently of how the blockchain distributes rewards. Rewards are staked automatically, so users increase their rewards over time. With Bitpanda Staking, the community will receive rewards from the first week they stake.

“Bitpanda Staking is the easy way to put crypto at work and it offers our community the opportunity to earn additional income on selected crypto-assets, with a one-click feature that requires no prior technical knowledge. We are committed to enabling staking for more cryptocurrencies throughout the year.”
– Eric Demuth, Bitpanda CEO and Co-Founder

Founded in 2014, Bitpanda is a crypto-trading company based in Austria with Eric Demuth, Paul Klanschek, and Christian Trummer as co-founders.

Several major financial services firms, including Citi, Wells Fargo, and BNY Mellon, are investing in institutional digital asset technology provider Talos, which aims to remove “the barriers to wide-scale crypto adoption.” The latest funding round values the company at $1.25 billion.

Citi, Wells Fargo, BNY Mellon Participate in $105M Funding Round for Digital Asset Tech Firm

A number of major financial services companies, including Citi and Wells Fargo, have joined a funding round for Talos, a global firm that provides institutional digital asset trading technology.

Talos announced a $105 million Series B funding round Tuesday that values the company at $1.25 billion.

“Our institutional-grade infrastructure technology supports the full lifecycle of digital asset trading, from price discovery to execution through to settlement,” its website describes, adding that “Talos is removing the barriers to wide-scale crypto adoption.”

The funding round was led by global growth equity firm General Atlantic, the announcement notes, adding:

New investors including Stripes, BNY Mellon, Citi, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, DRW Venture Capital, SCB 10x, Matrix Capital Management, Fin VC and Voyager Digital, Graticule Asset Management Asia (GAMA) and Leadblock Partners joined the round.

Existing Talos investors included Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Paypal Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Fidelity Investments, Illuminate Financial, Initialized Capital, and Notation Capital.

Anton Katz, co-founder and CEO of Talos, commented:

This funding round represents a major inflection point for the industry. We’ve long heard that ‘the institutions are coming.’ The institutions are now here, and we’re extremely proud to be the digital asset trading platform of choice for leading institutions around the world.

What do you think about major financial services companies investing in digital asset firms? Let us know in the comments section below.

Kevin Helms

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.