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3X as many crypto figures make it onto Forbes 2021 billionaires list as last year

Forbes released their annual billionaires list on April 6, with Amazon overlord Jeff Bezos and his $177 billion topping the list for a fourth consecutive year.

The “digital gold rush” has seen nine new crypto billionaires join the Forbes list, pushing the total up to 12 (depending on whether you count the Winklevoss twins as one or two entries.) That’s up from just four in last year’s Forbes World’s Billionaires list

Sam Bankman-Fried – Newcomer

Sam Bankman-Fried is the wealthiest crypto-billionaire, with a net worth of $8.7 billion. Bankman-Fried founded trading firm Alameda Research and popular derivatives exchange FTX. The 29-year old has made waves in the crypto space, with FTX recently winning the naming rights to Miami Heat’s home stadium for 19 years. Cointelegraph recently ranked Bankman-Fried as the third most influential figure in crypto for 2020.

The Winklevoss Twins – Newcomers

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have a net worth of $3 billion each and started investing in Bitcoin in 2012. The brothers famously sued Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg for IP theft in 2004 and won a $65 million settlement which they used to invest in Bitcoin. They started the crypto exchange Gemini in 2014, and they purchased Nifty Gateway in November 2019.

Chris Larsen – Returnee

Larsen, the co-founder of Ripple Labs saw his net worth grow from $2.6 billion to $3.4 billion over the past year.

Larson and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse have been fighting an ongoing dispute with the SEC in relation to XRP and unregistered securities offerings. However, the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple hasn’t appeared to affect its token too badly, with XRP increasing by 387% in the last 12 months.

Jed McCaleb – Newcomer

McCaleb is another co-founder of Ripple, and reportedly holds 3.4 billion XRP and 1 billion Stellar Lumens — the cryptocurrency he founded after leaving Ripple — with his holdings adding up to a net worth of $2 billion. Cointelegraph reported that McCaleb sold off $400 million worth of his XRP holdings in 2020 alone.

Michael Saylor – Newcomer

Saylor is the CEO of listed company MicroStrategy and co-founded the software giant in 1989, and now has a net worth of $2.3 billion. Saylor has become the leading advocate for corporations holding Bitcoin on balance sheets. Since its first purchase of Bitcoin in August 2020, Microstrategy has invested $2.226 billion, taking its tally up to 91,579 Bitcoins at an average cost of $24,311 per Bitcoin.

Brain Armstrong – Returnee

Armstrong is the CEO and co-founder of Coinbase and his net worth has gone from $1 billion to $6.5 billion within 12 months. Coinbase also had a successful year, generating $1 billion in revenue, and it’s set for a direct listing in a week. That will value Armstrong’s shares somewhere north of $14B, meaning he may well top the crypto billionaires’ list next year.

Fred Ersham – Newcomer

Ersham co-founded Coinbase with Brian Armstrong in 2012 and left the firm in 2017. He is now a board member of the company, and his 6% stake has an estimated worth of $1.9 billion.

Changpeng Zhao

Zhao is the founder of the largest crypto exchange Binance and owns an estimated 30% stake in the company. Zhao’s net worth is $1.9 billion, and the digital gold rush has been good to the Binance founder, with Binance Coin becoming the second-largest altcoin by market cap. Zhao revealed earlier this week that he holds close to 100% of his portfolio in crypto.

Matthew Roszak – Newcomer

Roszak is the Chairman and co-founder of blockchain technology firm Bloq and is a leading crypto and blockchain investor. Roszak is also a founding member of Tally Capital a crypto-focused private investment firm and has a net worth of $1.5 billion.

Tim Draper – Newcomer

Draper is a crypto evangelist with a net worth of $1.5 billion. He bought $18.7 million worth of Bitcoin in 2014 after it was confiscated from the Silk Road black market. Draper was also one of the primary investors in the Tezos project and co-founded Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a leading investment firm in early-stage tech startups.

Barry Silbert – Newcomer

Silbert founded the crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group in 2015 and has a net worth of $1.6 billion. The DCG owns asset management firm Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which currently has $46 billion worth of assets under management.

3X as many crypto figures make it onto Forbes 2021 billionaires list as last year

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Coinbase’s first quarter revenue hits record $1.8B ahead of its Nasdaq listing

Coinbase has announced impressive first quarter results one week before the exchange’s direct listing on the Nasdaq, estimating that trading volume is up 276% and quarterly revenue has hit $1.8 billion.

The bountiful revenue, revealed in the company’s Q1 earnings call, dwarf its $190 million revenue from the same time last year with the company attributing a portion of this explosive growth to Bitcoin’s bull market.

The U.S exchange estimated net income between $730 million and $800 million and an EBIDTA of approximately $1.1 billion.

The bull market has also seen monthly active users grow to more than six million users, up from 1.3 million in the first quarter, with crypto assets on the platform rising 1200% year-on-year from $17 billion to $223 billion.

The U.S.-based exchange’s CEO Alesia Haas said:

“We have seen all time high crypto prices drive elevated levels of user activity and trading volume on our platform.”

Boasting 56 million verified users, Haas suggested that active monthly users could rise to seven million at most this year, although he warned this could drop to four million if a bear market hits this year.

The company is spending big to acquire new customers. Following next week’s listing, Coinbase intends to increase its sales and marketing expenditure to between 12% and 15% of this year’s net revenue in an effort to drive “meaningful growth in 2021.”

“Looking to full year 2021, in order to scale our operations and to continue to drive product innovation, we expect our technology and development expenses and our general and administrative expenses to be between $1.3 billion to $1.6 billion, excluding stock-based compensation, in 2021.”

The report results are preliminary and unaudited, however, the exchange wanted to release a detailed report prior to the Nasdaq listing set for April 14. The company will register nearly 115 million shares of Class A common stock, under the ticker symbol COIN. As a direct listing, the exchange won’t be selling new stock and can only register existing stock, allowing existing stakeholders to sell their shares to new investors.

Coinbase has received multiple valuations ranging from $68 billion based on private market transactions to more than $120 billion.

Investment research firm New Constructs CEO David Trainer had his doubts about the lofty expectations. “Coinbase’s expected valuation of roughly $100 billion is far too high,” he said in a note to clients Monday.

“It’s hard to make a straight-faced argument that the firm can justify the lofty expectations baked into its valuation given increasing competition in a mature cryptocurrency trading market and the lack of sustainability in its current market share and margins.”

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried took to Twitter to congratulate Coinbase on its impressive quarterly figures and upcoming IPO listing, and compared it to his own, much newer exchange’s figures.

Coinbase\’s first quarter revenue hits record $1.8B ahead of its Nasdaq listing

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Bitcoin price rally to $61,800 shows BTC bulls are in full control

On March 13 bulls took full control of the crypto market as Bitcoin (BTC) price vaulted to a new all-time high at $61,844 after a high volume surge pushed the price through overhead resistance near $58,000.  

Analysts had spent the week calling for an eventual move above the $60,000 level and social metrics showed bullish sentiment for Bitcoin continued to increase as a number of companies and institutional investors announced plans to make BTC purchases. 

BTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

Bitcoin now finds itself in the realm of price discovery as there is limited data available from a technical analysis standpoint to determine where the price may go next.

One possible price target was highlighted in a recent report from Decentrader co-founder Philip Swift, who is now looking at the 1.618 fib extension ($70,000) as the next take profit level.

Mainstream crypto adoption continues

Evidence of the growing merger between the cryptocurrency sector and mainstream industry can be found in the most recent news that FTX  exchange is in the process of finalizing a deal to sponsor the National Basketball Association’s Miami Heat and obtain the naming rights for the teams’ arena, which will likely be renamed FTX arena.

Once finalized, the deal would mark the first major partnership with an American sports league for a cryptocurrency project or platform.

The explosion in the popularity of nonfungible tokens has also caught the attention of the mainstream press following this week’s record-breaking $69.3 million Beeple auction.  The success of the action has prompted an increasing number of well-known artists to begin exploring the NFT space and the opportunities it offers.

Bitcoin breakout sparks rally in altcoins

Altcoins also lit up as Bitcoin soared to a new all-time high. Decentraland (MANA), a virtual reality and gaming-focused project, outperformed the field with an 89% gain to a price of $1.19.

Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360

The majority of small-cap altcoins witnessed double-digit gains and even larger-cap coins like AAVE and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) surged 10.84% and 14% respectively.

Ether (ETH) also rallied 13% to $1,933 as bulls attempt to make a run at the current all-time high of $2,043

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.84 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 62.1%.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Bitcoin price rally to $61,800 shows BTC bulls are in full control

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FTX Token (FTT) rallies 105% as interest in derivatives trading grows

FTX is a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange backed by Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm and crypto liquidity provider. 

The exchange launched in April 2019 and offered the usual spot trading, inverse swaps and futures contracts that can be found at other major platforms. By early 2020, the exchange launched its daily and weekly binary BTC options markets.

FTT/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

FTT is the exchange’s native token and it’s issued on the Ethereum blockchain. FTT stakers are granted a trading fee discount based on a tiered system and other benefits include bonus votes in their polls and increased airdrop rewards.

The first airdrop took place in August 2020 when 500 million Serum (SRM) tokens were distributed to FTT holders. To differentiate itself from competitors, the users’ collateral is shared in one universal stablecoin wallet.

This means traders can reduce their margin requirements drastically. Numerous leveraged tokens mimicking leveraged ETF stocks have also been listed, including 3x Long Bitcoin and 3x Short Litecoin.

Leveraged tokens are derived from the exchange’s perpetual swap contracts and operate as tradeable ERC-20 tokens that can be withdrawn and traded. These innovative products have made the FTX a popular exchange among investors, as reflected by its rising futures contracts open interest.

Global markets aggregate open interest. Source: coinalyze.net

As shown above, the figure grew by 340% over the past six months, surpassing the $2 billion mark to vastly outperform more established exchanges.

In November 2020, the exchange ventured into tokenized equity trading, albeit not available for its U.S. citizens. Its partner CM-Equity custody the tokens redeemable for the underlying stocks. Interestingly, it’s allowed its users to buy less than one share, which is particularly useful for high-priced stocks like Amazon ($AMZN) and Google ($GOOG).

In December, FTX continued to innovate by launching pre-IPO futures contracts for AirBNB and Coinbase. These contracts allow traders to speculate on what price those companies will list on a stock exchange. The exchange also offers trading for thematic products, including a basket of cannabis-related listed stocks.

By creating multiple markets with enough liquidity provided by its market-making structure, the exchange was able to gather attention from a new client base. More recently, a Wall Street Bets index was launched, including GameStop ($GME), Dogecoin (DOGE), and iShares Silver Trust ($SLV).

Backed by these popular offerings, FTX Token (FTT) price has doubled since the beginning of 2021.

FTX Token (FTT) token price at Binance. Source: TradingView

To further incentivize holding the token, FTX repurchases and burns 33% of all fees generated from the exchange and 10% of its insurance fund net additions. This process will continue until half of the initial 350 million supply are destroyed.

While this may appear like a deflationary schedule, there are 31.25 million tokens allocated to the team, representing at least 17.8% of the targeted 175 million circulating supply. Regardless, considering the current $11.70 token price, its market capitalization after the burn process is completed surpasses $2 billion.

This number represents a 45% discount to Binance Coin’s (BNB) projected 2031 market capitalization, according to data from Messari. This is also roughly in line with the exchanges’ aggregate open interest $4.26 billion to $2.0 billion difference .

Interestingly, Binance has an undisclosed investment in FTX, and this may be creating fewer incentives for direct competition.

Currently, it seems that the market is pricing both tokens at the same valuation. Binance appears to be expanding its ecosystem via its Binance Smart Chain decentralized exchange, their blockchain projects incubator and a successful token launchpad platform.

FTX, on the other hand, is focused on being the market-leader of derivatives products innovation.

Currently all of these projects are producing value for token holders and with the burn schedule and rising popularity among derivatives exchanges it’s possible that FTT will continue to see further price appreciation.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

FTX Token (FTT) rallies 105% as interest in derivatives trading grows

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2 key Bitcoin price indicators show pro traders are waiting for $36K

Bitcoin (BTC) recently reclaimed $35,000, but top traders at Huobi, OKEx and Binance are not buying the breakout. Unlike the savvy institutional investors who may be desperate for protection against the debasement of fiat, the more crypto-focused investors seem to be waiting for dips.

Institutional investors might also be celebrating the Jan. 4 announcement that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will allow banks to include stablecoins in bank-permissible functions. This further validates the crypto sector and may result in a rise in institutional participation in the space.

Typically, after a new all-time high is achieved, Bitcoin price pulls back as some traders take profits and bears consider opening short positions near the new “top.”

Crypto-focused traders are well aware of Bitcoin’s volatility, and the recent dip to $27,000 serves as a perfect example.

To effectively measure how crypto-focused traders have been positioning themselves, investors should monitor the top traders’ long-to-short ratio at leading crypto exchanges.

Top traders BTC long/short ratio. Source: Bybt.com

Notice how Huobi top traders have been reducing their long positions over the past two days. Meanwhile, Binance top traders have been sitting mostly sideways this entire period.

It is worth noting that exchanges gather data on top traders differently, as there are multiple ways to measure clients’ net exposure. Therefore, any comparison between different providers should be made on percentage changes instead of absolute numbers.

OKEx has been the only exception, as its top-traders metric showed that investors entered short positions as BTC momentarily dumped on Jan. 4, but this trend reverted as the $31,000 support was reestablished. This data indicates that those traders are chasing the market instead of placing bets ahead of the move.

Generally speaking, it is safe to conclude that “top” traders have not been responsible for the current bull run.

The futures funding rate is holding steady

Perpetual contracts, also known as inverse swaps, have an embedded rate that is usually charged every eight hours. When buyers (longs) are the ones demanding more leverage, the funding rate turns positive. Therefore, the buyers will be the ones paying up the fees. This issue holds especially true during bull runs, when there is usually more demand for longs.

BTC perpetual futures funding rates. Source: Digital Assets Data

As shown above, the funding rate climbed to an unusually high 5% weekly level on exchange FTX on Jan. 4. Regardless of this oddity, the average 1% weekly funding rate seems exceptionally modest considering Bitcoin’s 18% rally over the past six days.

At the moment, it’s clear that top traders at major exchanges are not the ones leading the recent buying activity. These short-term traders seem to be waiting for lower entry points, according to their long-to-short position data and the funding rate on derivatives exchanges.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

2 key Bitcoin price indicators show pro traders are waiting for $36K

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