Altcoin season has officially begun. Cryptocurrency stocks like MicroStrategy and Coinbase are also booming, and one bank is predicting a massive Bitcoin price increase much sooner than originally thought. This week we bring you these stories and more in cryptocurrency.
Altcoins surpass Bitcoin
Bitcoin hit $39,000 this week, its highest since April 2022, but altcoin season has begun, with explosive gains for many altcoins outpacing BTC. AVAX, the native token of the Avalanche blockchain, surged 97% as JPMorgan tested asset tokenization on the network. Besides AVAX, Helium, Blur, and Rune were among the top altcoins that doubled in value in just one month.
Reddit’s MOON token rises
Social platform Reddit has reached an important milestone by completing the decentralization of its MOON token. Giving up control over the distribution contract ensures that the supply of MOON coins is limited and that contract can no longer be modified, establishing MOON as a fully decentralized entity. The price of the coin on Reddit reacted positively to this news, rising 150% from just a month ago.
MicroStrategy doubles BTC.
Microstrategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, purchased about 16,000 Bitcoin worth about $600 million last November, increasing its holdings by 10%. The software company currently holds 175,000 bitcoins purchased at an average price of about $30,000 per coin, and the November purchases accelerated the company’s bitcoin buying activity.
Coinbase Stock Triple
Coinbase’s stock price has surged 62% this month, showing Wall Street’s renewed confidence in America’s leading cryptocurrency exchange. Amid Binance’s legal troubles, investors expect increased activity at Coinbase, leading to a tripling of its stock price in 2023. Analysts say Coinbase is in the best position since going public, having survived industry turmoil over the past few years.
FTX sells Grayscale assets
FTX has received approval from bankruptcy court to sell $744 million invested in Grayscale Trust to raise funds and repay creditors it owes billions of dollars. Since the company filed for bankruptcy last year amid fraud charges, its advisers have been unraveling a complex web of debt it owes to various creditors. To date, $7 billion in assets have been recovered.
Another superstar sued for approving NFTs
Cristiano Ronaldo is facing a $1 billion class action lawsuit related to his promotion of his NFT collection on Binance. The collection includes animated figurines depicting key moments in the star soccer player’s life, with some NFTs selling for up to $10,000. The plaintiff in the lawsuit now claims Ronaldo’s endorsement led to costly and risky investments and accuses him of making deceptive statements in connection with the Binance promotion.
AI-related cryptocurrency token rally
AI-related cryptocurrencies have surged by $2 billion in less than two weeks, with top tokens seeing significant gains. Notably, Bittensor’s TAO token has surged 86% in the past few weeks due to its blockchain-based machine learning network. Fetch, which specializes in AI-based data solutions, saw its FET token rise 46%, while Covalent, which provides integrated blockchain data access, saw its CQT token rise 42%.
Standard Chartered: Spring has arrived for cryptocurrencies
Standard Chartered Bank has revised its $100,000 outlook for Bitcoin ahead of the halving, citing increased optimism following the introduction of US spot Bitcoin ETFs. Geoff Kendrick, the bank’s head of cryptocurrency research, cited the cryptocurrency spring and highlighted Bitcoin’s dominance and miner hoarding as the driving force behind the surge in Bitcoin’s value.
This is what happened in the cryptocurrency market this week. I will see you next week.