By Kapil Rajyaguru
It has been nothing short of a mind-blowing few weeks ever since Donald Trump won the US presidential elections on November 5. Since then, the primary cryptocurrency broke its March 2024 all-time high of $73,740 and didn’t really look back.
Bitcoin skyrocketed past $99,000, thus coming just 1% away from $100,000 mark. This came amid the growing inflows toward the spot BTC ETFs, which now have over $100 billion in Assets Under Management, according to SoSoValue.
Most of the recent high-flying alts have turned red today. ADA, SUI, DOT, PEPE, AVAX, and others have all dropped by over 5%. PEPE actually leads the meme coin-retracement wave that has also hit the likes of BONK, WIF, SHIB, DOGE, PNUT, and others.
In contrast, SOL and XRP have charted minor gains, but BCH has taken the main stage from the larger-cap alts, having surged by 17% to well above $500. BSV has also charted an impressive surge of 10.3% to $76. The total crypto market cap registered a record of its own at over $3.330 trillion today, rising by $80 billion in a day.
Meanwhile, MicroStrategy has completed a $3 billion offering of 0% convertible senior notes due in December 2029, with plans to use a portion or all of the proceeds to buy more Bitcoin.
The business intelligence firm announced the completion as its shares retraced more than 25% on Nov. 21, Google Finance data shows.
MicroStrategy could buy about 30,600 Bitcoin if it were to spend the entire $3 billion on the cryptocurrency. MicroStrategy currently holds 331,200 Bitcoin worth over $32.7 billion — the most of any public company — according to Saylor Tracker.
MicroStrategy (MSTR) shares fell over 25% from its highest point of $536.7 to $397.28 when the closing bell rang on Nov. 21.
In another interesting development, Metaplanet has announced the purchase of 124.117 bitcoin for a total of 1.75 billion yen. This brings the company’s total bitcoin holdings to 1,142.287 BTC, valued at around 11.372 billion yen worth around $73 million.
Following the announcement, Google Finance data shows that the firm’s stock price surged by over 15%, reaching 2,295 yen, which is just under $15. The latest buy has also shot up the company’s quarterly-to-date BTC yield to 186.9%, up from 41.7% in the previous quarter.
Elsewhere, A draft regulatory framework for crypto assets will be ready in the United Kingdom early next year, a Treasury official promised at City & Financial Global’s Tokenisation Summit in London on Nov. 21.
Some regulations were expected last summer, but a general election overturned those plans along with the Conservative government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Now, Keir Starmer’s Labour government, which took office on July 5, will present the regulations.
Meanwhile, A Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Judge has approved Celsius Network’s request to serve legal notices via non-fungible token (NFT) airdrops.
Celsius, currently undergoing insolvency proceedings, seeks to recover funds from allegedly fraudulent transfers to unidentified digital wallets.
Gary Gensler, the current chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), confirmed on Thursday that he will be stepping down from his role starting in January.
Gensler was highly unpopular among the crypto community for his long list of enforcement actions against the industry’s leaders, and unwillingness to encourage more accommodating rules for the new asset class. Donald Trump promised to fire Gensler in July, and has since been elected the 47th U.S. President.
Meanwhile…Sui Network suffered a major disruption on November 21st after failing to produce blocks on its mainnet, which effectively brought the blockchain to a standstill. Following a two-hour downtime, the network resumed operations, once again processing transactions.
According to the official announcement by the team behind the Layer 1 network, the outage was caused by a bug in the transaction scheduling logic that led to validator crashes.
Elsewhere… In an effort to tackle electricity shortages, Russian officials disclosed plans to suspend cryptocurrency mining in several regions this winter. The ban will impact the Irkutsk region, portions of Buryatia, the Zabaikalsky region in Siberia, and six North Caucasus areas, including Chechnya and Dagestan.
The latest move comes less than a month after Russia introduced a legal framework for cryptocurrency mining, which required individuals and businesses involved in the sector to register with the Federal Tax Service. Citizens can mine up to 6,000 kWh per month without entrepreneur status but must register as individual entrepreneurs if they exceed the limit.
And Lastly, The President-elect’s Trump Media and Technology Group is in talks to buy digital-asset marketplace Bakkt Holdings, according to a report by the FT citing sources familiar with the matter on Nov. 19.
The all-stock acquisition by Trump’s social media firm, which owns Truth Social, would consolidate his position in the digital asset industry. Bakkt is an institutional crypto asset platform backed by New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
You need to login in order to Like
