In the traditional investing world ‘unicorn’ is a term used by venture capitalists to describe a privately held startup valued at more than $1 billion. Typically these startups have strong fundamentals and oftentimes a first-mover advantage that helps them rapidly rise in value to become prized investment opportunities for yield-seeking funds. Some of the best-known unicorns include Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a private rocket and spacecraft manufacturer with a valuation of $46 billion, and Coinbase, the largest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange with a current valuation of $8 billion. While the world's attention has been focused on the Coronavirus pandemic, the outcome of …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) correction from its January high has not shaken the confidence of institutional investors. According to Glassnode analysts, the number of whales holding more than 1,000 Bitcoin has increased by 200 this year. Along with the institutions, several high profile investors have also committed money to the crypto sector. Hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones, former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, and American rapper LL Cool J have invested in a new venture capital crypto fund launched by Silver Lake Partners co-founder Glenn Hutchins and his associates. The steady inflow into crypto assets suggests that investors are bullish in the …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) stellar run in the latter half of 2020 and MicroStrategy’s purchase of the digital asset appears to have attracted attention from several publicly listed companies in the United States. However, the lack of regulatory clarity could have deterred them from buying Bitcoin at lower levels. To address this issue, business intelligence firm MicroStrategy is hosting an online seminar on Feb. 3 and 4, where “the legal considerations firms face while integrating Bitcoin into their corporate strategy” will be discussed. Several major crypto firms will also make presentations to the audience. About 1,400 firms have signed up for the …

Manta Network has closed a $1.1 million funding round to create a fully private decentralized exchange on Polkadot. Announced on Tuesday, the round was led by Polychain Capital and joined by Hypersphere Ventures, Three Arrows Capital, Defiance Capital, Multicoin Capital, Alameda Research, BTC12 Capital, Genblock Capital, Rarestone Capital, AU21 Capital and TRG Capital. Manta wants to create an automated market maker exchange on Polkadot that would feature fully private swaps. It uses zk-SNARKs with Groth16 proofs, which is the same cryptographic technology used in Zcash (ZEC). True privacy has been hard to obtain in decentralized finance. All DeFi protocols are …

21Shares, a major provider of cryptocurrency exchange-traded products, or ETP, is launching the world’s first Polkadot (DOT) ETP. The new product, DOT ETP, will be listed on the Swiss SIX exchange on Feb. 4, 2021, 21Shares announced Tuesday. The new ETP comes shortly after Polkadot was added to 21Shares’ major ETP product Crypto Basket ETP (HODL) on Jan. 29. Tracking five major cryptos like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), HODL has removed Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and is now listing Polkadot as the second-largest constituent after Bitcoin. According to HODL ETP data from MVIS indices, Polkadot now accounts for about 27% …

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently voiced his support for Bitcoin (BTC) during a chat with Clubhouse. Musk said that his friends tried to onboard him to the Bitcoin bandwagon as early as 2013, but the world’s richest man did not take the final step. Musk admitted that he was “late to the party.” Musk also said that Bitcoin could be “on the verge of getting broad acceptance by conventional finance." While these comments by the SpaceX founder are positive, they did not move the markets since he did not commit to buying Bitcoin as a personal investment or for the …

Sentiment plays a major role in the short-term price action of an asset. This truth was demonstrated today when Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, simply wrote 'Bitcoin’ in his Twitter bio. Crypto traders and Musk followers immediately noticed and Bitcoin price conveniently shot up a few minutes after the tweet. When BTC price makes a sharp directional move, traders buy into the breakout and short-sellers are squeezed out of their positions. That is what seems to have happened with Bitcoin (BTC) as the sentiment swiftly turned bullish. It is not only Bitcoin that has seen a pick up in …

The largest Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency asset manager in the world, Grayscale, could be set to move into the decentralized finance space after documents for several new trusts were filed in the Delaware corporate registry. New trust filings for Aave (AAVE), Polkadot (DOT) and Cosmos (ATOM) were filed on Wednesday. On the same day, Grayscale also registered trusts for Cardano (ADA), as well as the privacy coin Monero (XMR). Grayscale has since stated that the filings are not indicative of a definitive product launch for the five coins mentioned, merely that the firm is laying the groundwork for possible future …

Public companies have purchased about 85,000 Bitcoin (BTC) in the past year and institutional investors have pumped money into Grayscale Investments, which shows increasing institutional adoption is one of the main reasons for the recent Bitcoin rally. However, at the moment it seems institutional investors are unlikely to chase prices higher. If the fresh inflow of money stalls or reduces drastically, it could result in a pullback in Bitcoin’s price. If that happens, short-term traders and momentum players may book profits and trigger a deeper correction. A correction will be a healthy sign because it will shake out the speculators …

After the recent correction, Bitcoin (BTC) will need aggressive inflows to absorb the possible selling from the short-term traders and momentum players as the price nears $40,000. In the past few months, Grayscale Investments has been one of the major entities responsible for the pickup in demand. However, JPMorgan Chase analysts pointed out in a recent note that Grayscale inflows “appear to have peaked” on a four-week rolling average basis. Without a strong tailwind from the institutional investors, many analysts believe Bitcoin may not break above $40,000. The failure to resume the uptrend does not mean Bitcoin will plunge and …

As Bitcoin price trade sideways, traders are keeping an eye out for new purchases from institutional investors in order to gauge whether BTC's correction is over. MicroStrategy’s recent purchase of 314 Bitcoin at an average price of $31,808 is a mild sentiment booster but it may not be enough to arrest the decline if buyers do not step in and sustain their purchases at higher levels. A recent timezone analysis by QCP Capital divided the Asia and U.S. trading sessions into a 12-hour bracket and found that since March 2020 Bitcoin price had risen during U.S. hours due to sustained …

Bitcoin (BTC) price opened the weekend trapped within the $33,500 to $32,000 range but at the time of writing the digital asset is struggling to hold above $32,000. A few analysts have warned that the recent price loss of momentum may be a sign of ‘institutional exhaustion’ as selling pressure from Asia has increased since Jan. 19. Despite Bitcoin’s current downtrend, some institutional investors are sticking to their prediction that BTC price will reach $100,000 before the end of 2021. This suggests that institutions are buoyed by rising investor sentiment and the new proposals for a Bitcoin ETF. While Bitcoin …