Weekly Wrap-Up: Coinbase and Kimchi (April 12, 2021)
Good morning. Welcome to Monday Markets Wrap-up, part of our new series: BitPinas Daily. We will look back at all the major news and updates that happened this week. Crypto is global, but sometimes news that matters happens while we sleep. So we bring to you what’s happening in our space here and abroad. We highlight three to four important news of the past week and list down the rest.
Market Price as of April 12, 2021:
| Bitcoin | $59,988 | +0.02% |
| Ethereum | $2,150.27 | +0.35% |
| BNB | $522.90 | +10.82% |
| DOT | $41.38 | -0.5% |
| ADA | $1.26 | +3.28% |
| SLP | $0.04 | -4.4% |
Bitcoin closed April 11, 2021, at $59,988 per BTC. We’re up 2.6% in the last 7 days and up 105.97% since the year began. This is also 2.79% below the all-time high of $61,711, which was hit on March 13, 2021.
Bitcoin’s market capitalization stands today at $1,116,183,810,480 which is 52.80% of the entire cryptocurrency market. The entire crypto market, by the way, now has a market cap of $2,114,791,800,839 +0.3%).
On the table above, there’s the cryptocurrency SLP. If you wonder what that is, check out this article: Playing Axie Infinity vs Minimum Basic Salary in the Philippines.
Coinbase
Coinbase Revenue Tops $1.8 Billion, Active Users Grew By 117%
In its voluntary earnings report, Coinbase repealed a 117% quarter over quarter increase in monthly transacting users, allowing it to produce $1.8 billion in revenue. This also helps Coinbase’s net income to arrive at $800 million.
Coinbase has truly benefited from the bull market, with Bitcoin approaching $60,000 this month.
Some interesting information from the report:
- Active users increase to 6.1 million in Q1 2021 vs 2.8 million in Q4 2020
- Verified users grew to 56 million in Q1 2021 vs 43 million in Q4 2020
- Trading volume reached $335 volume this quarter vs $193 billion last quarter
Market Capitalization
Crypto Market Cap Now at $2 Trillion
Cointelegraph said because of this new milestone, another milestone has been reached – 100 cryptocurrencies have reached a $1 billion market cap.
According to Coindesk, Bitcoin will be the biggest benefactor of this altcoin rally. “These early adopters shifting to altcoins will both work to decrease volatility in bitcoin and also eventually help decide the winners from the losers in the alt space, which is kind of a necessary condition for any altcoin to emerge as a viable longer-term asset.”
Paxful
Paxful Denies Rumors of Data Breach
A vendor in the black market is selling a database that allegedly contained personal information of around 4.8 million Paxful customers and staff. The vendor said they have the first and last names, birth dates, email addresses, physical addresses, and passwords of the Paxful clients. The price for the entire database is 1 BTC or around $58,000 today.
However, Paxful CEO Ray Youssef denies the breach.
According to Decrypt, Youseff’s claims backs up the skepticsm that the vendor encountered trying to sell the data.
First and foremost, Paxful had not reported being breached. Also they said 1 BTC is too low of a figure for such a high profile leak.
South Korea
The Return of the Kimchi Premium?
The price of Bitcoin in South Korea is now 15% higher than the prevailing global rate, fueled by high BTC demand and low supply on local exchanges. This is the so-called Kimchi Premium. It occurs, Decrypt said, because South Korean exchanges don’t have enough crypto to meet the huge demand.
Why is there low supply? Decrypt pointed out SK’s capital controls. The government makes it highly difficult to send the national currency to other countries. This makes it tricky for crypto exchanges to keep money flowing through them.
“But the kimchi premium of 15% is still substantially lower than the massive premiums in May 2017 (63%) and January 2018 (47%),” the publication noted.
Goldman Sachs
CEO Says Big Evolution Coming to Bitcoin Regulation
Some interesting insights from the Goldman CEO David Solomon in his interview with CNBC:
- Goldman is keeping a close eye on crypto due to increasing client demand
- “We continue to think about digital currency and the digitization of money in a very proactive way.”
- “I think that this is a space that is evolving, this is a space that we’re trying to be responsive to our clients. I think there will be a big evolution with how this evolves in the coming years.”
Note that Goldman has plans to offer Bitcoin investment products and reopen its crypto trading desk.
Ripple
Ripple CTO: All Evidence Suggests XRP and Bitcoin Are Similar
By now the Ripple vs SEC case has been well documented. The U.S. SEC alleged that Ripple is selling XRP which is an unregistered security. The regulator thinks XRP is a security and its sale is illegal.
For Ripple CTO David Schwartz however, that does not seem to be the case. To him XRP is like Bitcoin (which is not a security) and the market thinks so too. “The market considers them similar. We consider them similar.”
As to fears by XRP holders that Ripple might one day cease operating because of the SEC case. This is what he said:
“The market caps of these systems are in the billions of dollars. People acting in their own self-interest are not going to allow the ecosystem to die if there’s a way to save it. That’s all that’s holding these systems together. The governing bodies don’t have any legal authority to control these systems. You have to think that people will be able to come together enough to fix it.
#CryptoPH
This Collab Art is Possibly the Highest NFT Sale by a Filipino Artist
In our new article, we talk to Luis Buenaventura II and discuss his recent collaboration with Argentinian artist Jose Delbo to create “Satoshi the Creator – Genesis”. His views on NFT:
“NFT art provides a similar opportunity for artists to collaborate and offer their work to an art community that they would never have had access to otherwise. What we choose to do with these new opportunities, and how we choose to navigate these unfamiliar territories, is entirely up to us.”
Check out: This Collab Art is Possibly the Highest NFT Sale by a Filipino Artist
From The Defiant: NFTs as Major Source of Income in PH
The Defiant deep dives on the Axie Infinity phenomenon in the Philippines which many news sites are still sleeping on. An excerpt:
“People started to share pictures of mothers providing for their baby’s needs, fathers who bought [a] motorcycle, families getting together, house renovation, sons and daughters buying gifts for their parents,” Kookoo, a Yield Guild community leader who also posts crypto gaming content on YouTube, told The Defiant.
What else is happening
- Argentina’s Central Bank Demands Personal Details of Country’s Bitcoin Buyers
- Top Performing DeFi Coins in Q1 Were not on Ethereum
- Coinbase becomes latest member of group aimed at supporting DeFi projects
- U.S. SEC Begins Review of WisdomTree Bitcoin ETF as Active Applications Hit 8
- Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao Says ‘I Just Want to Keep Crypto’
- Mati Greenspan warns SEC’s latest action could threaten future of all cryptocurrencies
- Tesla’s landlord accepts crypto — Will Elon Musk pay rent in Bitcoin?
- Government Ban on Bitcoin Would Be ‘Foolish’: SEC’s Hester Pierce
- NFT Slowdown does not point to a market crash
- How Coinbase’s Wild Earnings Stack Up Against Normie Financial Firms
- Paris Hilton drops surprisingly well-informed article about NFTs
- Cardano Venture Fund Makes First Investment
- Japan’s BitFlyer Has a New President – Again
- Playboy Is Turning Its Classic Centerfolds Into NFTs
- Ripple Wins Ruling to Expose SEC Docs on Bitcoin, Ethereum
- Japan’s central bank begins digital currency experiments
- How will the Coinbase IPO Affect the Bitcoin Price
- MicroStrategy Stock Spikes Following Another Big Bet on Bitcoin
- Bitcoin at ‘Inflection Point’ as Fiat Debasement Rises: Soros Fund Management CIO
This article is published on BitPinas: Weekly Wrap-Up: Coinbase and Kimchi (April 12, 2021)
