This Tiny New Token Is up 40,000 % In Last 7 Days

Bitcoin is up 160% in 2023.

Not bad for an asset that was supposed to be “dead.”

But now it’s the proxy stocks that are stealing the show with the mother of all comebacks.

Bitcoin Proxy Stocks Are On The Move (Again!)

Whilst Bitcoin takes a breather and closes out the year with some sideways chop, it’s the proxy stocks that are sending portfolios higher. And it’s not just Coinbase…

MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy’s stock is up 383% in 2023. Cos every time you think Michael Saylor is done buying Bitcoin, he buys more.

MicroStrategy bought another 14,620 bitcoins for $615 million between November 20 and December 26.

This brings its total HODL to 189,150 BTC. That’s $1.2 billion spent on Bitcoin since November!

Marathon Digital

The Bitcoin miners have mooned!

Marathon Digital’s stock price is up a whopping 726% in 2023! Marathon Digital became the most-traded US stock of the day on December 27.

Over 105 million shares were traded to the tune of $327 million in trading volume—beating out tech giants like Tesla, Apple, and Amazon.

Just last week Marathon announced its plans to double its hash rate over the next two years. 

GBTC

Ark Invest is banking those profits by selling its remaining $200 million in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).

After all, GBTC is up over 300% this year.

Instead, Ark Invest has taken half of the profits and parked it in ProShares BITO Bitcoin Futures ETF.

This makes Ark Invest is BITO’s second-largest holder for now.

Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas thinks this is being used as a ‘liquid transition tool.’

In other words, a temporary hold which still gives Ark exposure to Bitcoin as it prepares for the launch of its spot Bitcoin ETF.

2024 Ins and Outs: Nigeria Lifts Crypto Ban, India Wants To Ban Crypto

As we head into Bitcoin’s halving year it’s interesting to see how countries all around the world react to yet another “crypto revival”.

It’s the only bubble that keeps coming back. Some countries change their tune, while others continue to tighten up.

Here are two countries making moves this week:

Nigeria

In 2021, Nigeria banned banks from serving crypto companies.

Nigeria’s CBDC also launched during the last bull market peak in October 2021. So crypto transactions went peer-to-peer. And they’ve only been increasing in numbers. 

From July 2022 to June 2023, crypto transactions grew by 9% to $56.7 billion. Now, Nigeria is lifting its ban on bank accounts for crypto companies. Just like that, the country has done a complete 180.

India

India is going down the opposite path to Nigeria.

India’s financial regulator has announced it wants to ban 9 crypto exchanges in the country.

The targeted exchanges are Binance, Kucoin, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MEXC Global, and Bitfinex.

These exchanges have been deemed as operating illegally for two reasons:

1. They haven’t registered with the regulator.
2. They are non-compliant with anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist regulations.

Now, these 9 exchanges will be cut off from the country.

Vitalik’s Plan To Take Ethereum Back To Its Roots

Vitalik Buterin is getting sentimental as he reflects on 2023.

He’s spilling his candid thoughts in a blog post published on December 28 called “Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again.”

He makes an honest confession: crypto culture has shifted away from its original vision of creating a censorship-resistant economy to nothing but speculation, degen gamblers, and the struggle with high transaction fees.

As Vitalik tries to steer the ship back in the right direction he’s also proposing another change. To simplify its proof of stake (PoS) consensus.

In the name of decentralization, Ethereum has ended up processing a large number of validator signatures—28,000 per slot. But it takes a toll on the network load.

So Vitalik plans to reduce the number of signatures needed to a more moderate level—8,192 per slot.

The aim is to scale back to help scale up.

So in 2024, Vitalik wants more people to come into crypto looking to get rich but to study it and stay for the technology.

Blast Tops $1 Billion Before 2024 Launch

The appropriately named Layer-2 Blast has skyrocketed to over $1 billion in total value locked (TVL) and it ain’t even fully launched yet.

Blast launched its bridge in November and right now it’s a one-way bridge to nowhere until the mainnet launches in February 2024.

But that hasn’t stopped users from locking up funds based on speculation alone.

Just to recap…

Blast is a crypto project created by the developers behind the NFT platform Blur.

The reason for investors piling into the platform that’s still in progress is the promise of an airdrop.

So whilst it’s a one-way bridge for now, users are staking assets for 5% yield and collecting “Blast Points” so that they can be redeemed for the airdrop token in May 2024.