Where Big Money is Flowing in Crypto

Tether and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust received bad news… Hey hey, a smartphone from Solana!

The price of Bitcoin (BTC-USD) may have plateaued recently at $21,000. However, it does not imply that no money is flowing covertly. We now have Tether (USDT-USD)… In the headlines about cryptocurrencies, there was even mention of a Solana (SOL-USD) smartphone!

Increasing Numbers of Hedge Funds Are Betting Against Tether

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal reported: According to WSJ’s source at Genesis Global Trading, “the short positions are almost solely put on by conventional hedge funds in the U.S. and Europe, while crypto firms—especially those headquartered in Asia—have been glad to assist the opposite side of the transactions.”

By market capitalization, Tether continues to be the largest stablecoin. And in May, it served as a temporary safe haven for money escaping its defunct algorithmic rival TerraUSD (UST-USD). However, observers of stablecoins have long claimed that Tether lacks sufficient funding.

The much more abundant USD Coin (USDC-USD) is rapidly increasing. Tether’s market worth has dropped to $66 billion, while USDC has grown to $55 billion.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTCMKTS:GBTC), which is now down 33 percent over the last month while bitcoin itself is down 28 percent, is also having trouble. Grayscale would much prefer base GBTC on the “spot” price than the current BTC futures model. On July 6, the SEC will decide whether to approve (or reject) Grayscale’s application.

Although around 11,400 individuals have written to the SEC to support this action… The difference in price between GBTC and real Bitcoin shows that traders are placing bets that the SEC will issue another another “No!” next week.

Even Goldman Sachs and FTX are searching for lucrative deals

According to CoinDesk on Friday, Goldman Sachs is attempting to facilitate a transaction in which “Web3 crypto firms, funds specialized in distressed assets, and conventional financial institutions with adequate cash on hand” will purchase assets worth $2 billion from Celsius Network (CEL-USD).

For those keeping score from home, Celsius had $12 billion under management as of May, but in the case of a crypto crisis, it would have been severely overleveraged. (You know…like the one we now have.)

Context: Celsius accounts have been “paused” for 15 days and counting since the “crypto bank” is so illiquid.

Celsius maintains that even though it knew its consumers were in it for the yield, they are still earning returns on their money. But as one tweet that was mentioned in Cointelegraph put it, “it is honestly humiliating” for users to get notices that “Celsius Network is still paying weekly prizes while keeping my crypto prisoner.”

In regards to Goldman’s plans to raise $2 billion in order to purchase Celsius assets at a lower price… Its first reaction, according to Blockworks, “was not positive.” Keep an eye out, I suppose!

Meanwhile, according to a source who recently spoke anonymously to Bloomberg, the crypto superstars at FTX (FTT-USD) would really, really want to buy Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD).

Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of FTX, already has a 7.6 percent personal investment in Robinhood. However, he was the first to correct Bloomberg: Even while “we are enthused about Robinhood’s business possibilities and various ways we may cooperate with them,” “there are no current M&A negotiations with Robinhood.”

When SBF’s interest was made public in May, I wrote to you, “My belief is that Robinhood has what this crypto-trading billionaire wants: a substantial options-trading company.” And given how quickly he’s been moving recently, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if we did soon hear some significant FTX/Robinhood news!

Cryptocurrency Market Cap Rebounds from Lows

The bitcoin market seems to have reached a low of $775 billion overall during the May/June slump (on June 18). The market worth of cryptocurrencies is now back up to almost $1 trillion.

Since the three-month chart above shows a significant correlation between the trajectory and BTC prices, the recent decline in BTC prices is not the first one.

This is attributed by Bloomberg to the “Ether (ETH-USD) Recovery” since ETH has increased by around 14% over the last five days. Along with that, partner chain Polygon (MATIC-USD) and “Ethereum killer” Avalanche both saw gains of +16 percent and +20 percent, respectively (AVAX-USD).

The broad strokes: As recently as April, the overall value of the crypto market was $2 trillion. But when we welcomed in the New Year of 2021, $1 trillion was the much-celebrated milestone. (For contrast, the market capitalization peaked in 2018 at $690 billion.)

Android Solana Smartphone to Arrive

If you were waiting for the “iPhone moment” in crypto…

Solana claims to have one for you in “early 2023,” after that.

You may then be one among the first people to acquire a brand-new Saga Android phone that has been “tightly connected with the Solana blockchain.” These ground-breaking “Web3 phones” were really created by Solana Mobile, a Solana Labs subsidiary.

The “Saga boasts a 6.67′′ OLED display, 12 GB RAM, 512 GB storage, and the newest flagship Snapdragon® 8+ Gen 1 Mobile Platform,” and is now available for pre-order.

The “Seed Vault [that] maintains private keys, seed phrases, and secrets apart from the application layer while remaining able to communicate with applications running on the device or in a mobile browser” is the most crucial feature.

The Solana Mobile Stack, already accessible to developers, will shortly bring such applications to Android’s Google Play, the largest app store by the overall number of items sold.

Bottom line: According to Raj Gokal, co-founder of Solana, “opening up crypto to mobile will lead to higher acceptance, better knowledge, and more possibilities.” If Solana is to be the blockchain to carry out this, it will need to increase network uptime. Overall however, this is precisely what we hope will take place in the New Digital World.

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