Biz Builder Mike

You can't sail Today's boat on Yesterdays wind - Michael Noel

stock

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Prediction: BTC/USD Slumps Below $60,000 Support as Bears Overwhelm Bulls

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Prediction – April 10, 2021
BTC/USD made positive moves above the $60,000 overhead resistance as price reached a high of $61,243. Unfortunately, buyers could not sustain the bullish momentum above the overhead resistance. Today, BTC price has fallen below the $60,000 support. A further downward movement of the coin is likely.

Resistance Levels: $58,000, $59,000, $60,000
Support Levels: $40,000, $39,000, $38,000

BTC/USD – Daily Chart

Today, BTC price broke the $60,000 overhead resistance as price reached the high of $61,243. In previous price actions, buyers broke the overhead resistance on two other occasions. On March 14, the bulls broke the psychological price level as price rallied to $61,699 high. On April 2, buyers also made concerted efforts to break the resistance but the market reached a high of $60,190. One common feature in the price action is that buyers failed to sustain the bullish momentum above the overhead resistance. Meanwhile, Bitcoin has fallen to $58,450 low and pulled back. The bottom line is that if the bears break the $58,000 support, the market will further decline to $54,000 low. On the other hand, if the $58,000 supports holds, Bitcoin will resume upside momentum.

HSBC Blacklists Microstrategy’s Stock for Investing In Bitcoin
HSBC is an investment banking giant that has classified MicroStrategy as a “virtual currency product.” HSBC has directed users that already own MicroStrategy stock not to buy additional shares. According to reports, buying MicroStrategy stock is no longer possible for HSBC customers on the bank’s online trading platform — HSBC InvestDirect or HIDC. The message from the banking giant includes the following: “HIDC will not participate in facilitating (buy and/or exchange) products relating to virtual currencies, or products related to or referencing to the performance of the virtual currency.” The reason for the blacklisting is that MicroStrategy is a virtual currency product.

BTC/USD – Daily Chart

Bitcoin has fallen after breaking the overhead resistance. Meanwhile, the upside momentum will resume if the BTC price retraces and finds support above the $58,000 support. Nevertheless, the Fibonacci tool has indicated an upward movement of price. On April 2 uptrend, a retraced candle body tested the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level. This retracement gives the impression that BTC price will rise to level 1.618 Fibonacci extension or the high of $66,425.90.

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Prediction: BTC/USD Slumps Below $60,000 Support as Bears Overwhelm Bulls

Source

European B2B Wealthtech Allfunds Set to List on Euronext Amsterdam Stock Exchange

Madrid-based Allfunds, a B2B Wealthtech solution provider, will reportedy be listing on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange.

Allfunds has developed a comprehensive ecosystem that aims to cover the complete fund distribution value chain and related investment cycles, including through Allfunds Connect, which is a suite of software-as-a-service or SaaS-powered digital, data and analytics software tools.

Allfunds had more than €1.2 trillion of assets under administration, as of December 2020. The company reports around €370 million in turnover and about €263 million adjusted Ebitda. The group also reports a growth rate of 13% during the last 3 months.

Allfunds has hired BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse Securities, Citigroup Global Markets and Morgan Stanley Europe as its joint bookrunner, for this latest offering, which includes a private placement of 25% of the firm’s outstanding shares that are held by LHC3, BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse.

Although  AllFunds won’t be getting any proceeds from the sale, the firm thinks that the listing could potentially provide access to diversified sources of financing and enhance its profile and general brand awareness.

Juan Alcaraz, founder and CEO of Allfunds, stated:

“We have built an ecosystem that covers the entire fund distribution value chain and investment cycle, integrated into a simple one-stop-shop for our clients. This listing provides us with the flexibility to accelerate the digital transformation of the wealth management industry and the growth of our best-in-class global platform.”

Allfunds may expand it business operations into other regions where it maintains a relatively smaller market presence, including in Asian and North American markets.

Allfunds, which claims to be the largest fund platform and world leader in the wealthtech space, recently launched a new mobile app for its digital eco-system Connect.

As mentioned in a company blog post:

“With the Connect App users will be able to track funds, manage portfolios wherever they are and never miss a critical alert. Users will be able to access information on their funds or adjust their portfolios at any time.”

Some other notable functions include:

  • Search, analyze, compare and monitor, from more than 200,000 funds at ETFs
  • Set-up and “access multiple alerts”
  • Stay “on top of watchlists that track funds”
  • Manage and “maintain control of portfolios accessing performance, risk, asset allocation and transactions”
  • With the Connect mobile app, users “leverage the power of Allfunds to manage funds and portfolios anytime, anywhere.”

Source

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

Source

Bitcoin mining stocks have outperformed BTC by 455% over the past 12 months

Despite the top publicly-listed Bitcoin mining firms operating at losses, their share prices have dramatically outperformed BTC over the past 12 months.

Appearing on CNBC, Fundstrat’s vice president of digital asset strategy, Leeor Shimron, shared his analysis into the market performance of the four-largest publicly-traded mining firms — Marathon Digital Holdings, Riot Blockchain, Hive Blockchain, and Hut 8, each of which represent a market cap of more than $1 billion.

Over the past 12 months, Shimron found the average return for shares in the mining firms to have been 5,000%, while BTC has gained 900% over the same period. Unsurprisingly, the stocks were found to have a “high positive correlation” with BTC.

The researcher concluded that for every 1% price move in BTC, Bitcoin mining shares move by 2.5% on average. However, the observation applies to both upward and downward price moves, meaning mining stocks are likely to plummet with more than twice the aggression of BTC during bearish market conditions.

“They’ll probably be hit hard as Bitcoin draws down,” he said.

Shimron attributed the wild volatility in miner stocks to the lack of regulated crypto investment products in the United States, speculating that “until a Bitcoin ETF is approved, investors may view public mining companies as one of the only ways to get exposure to Bitcoin.”

“Since the primary source of revenue is Bitcoin, these companies are fundamentally long [on] the industry — so investors are essentially making a ‘picks and shovels’ bet when they invest in miners.”

Noting that Coinbase’s shares are “trading at a roughly $100 billion valuation in the private markets,” Shimron added: “Clearly there is investor appetite to gain exposure to operators within the crypto space, and miners are just another segment within that.”

Shimron also noted that supply chain disruptions amid the coronavirus pandemic were beneficial to the four largest mining firms — who were able to stock up on next-generation hardware, such as Bitmain’s Antminer S19 series.

“They’ve made a huge capital investment and operate at a loss to position themselves for the current bull run,” he said, adding:

“By building up their cash rate capacity and increasing their operating leverage, they effectively shield themselves from competition amongst new miners. So they’ve increased their economies of scale to retain market share, and I believe that should pay dividends going forward.”

Bitcoin mining stocks have outperformed BTC by 455% over the past 12 months

Source

SEC issues first ever charges over phoney ‘insider information’ on darknet

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has announced charges against California resident James Roland Jones in the first-ever enforcement action from the commission to target securities fraud on the darknet.

According to the March 18 complaint, Jones is accused of accessing a darknet-based insider trading forum in late 2016 to seek material non-public information, or MNPI, on which to trade securities.

He was unsuccessful in obtaining any useful MNPI from the forum, but in the spring of 2017, Jones allegedly began selling insider stock tips himself under the false pretext he was privy to MNPI obtained both from the forum and corporate sources he claimed to be personally affiliated with. Jones is believed to have received roughly $27,000 worth of BTC for the fraudulent tips.

Jones’ tips were believed to be general predictions as to whether a stock would go up or down, with Jones sometimes selling tips for the same stock to go in both directions to different customers. When tips failed, Jones would offer another tip for free in exchange for positive reviews on a darknet marketplace.

The alleged fraudster also began operating a collective investment pool in 2017, laiming to make trades on behalf of investors. However, Jones was not trading with investors’ funds, and would instead return a small amount of the principal invested as purported profits to lure his victims into depositing additional funds.

The SEC accuses Jones of having acted in violation of anti-fraud provisions of the Exchange Act, and is seeking disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus interest, civil penalties, and permanent injunctive relief.

David Peavler, the director of the SEC’s Fort Worth regional office, noted that the agency has committed significant resources to investigate crime on the dark web, stating:

“This case shows that the SEC can and will pursue securities law violators wherever they operate, even on the dark web. We have committed staff and technology to pierce the cloak of anonymity these wrongdoers try to throw over their crimes.”

SEC issues first ever charges over phoney ‘insider information’ on darknet

Source