According to Odaily Planet Daily, QCP Capital's latest report pointed out that the current macro environment is increasingly favorable for risky assets including cryptocurrencies. The People's Bank of China has introduced a series of policies to stimulate the real estate and stock markets, including a 500 billion yuan swap tool for non-bank financial institutions, and these measures have begun to show results.
QCP Capital expects China to further ease policy, and with the Federal Reserve likely to join the global rate cut cycle, major central banks (except the Bank of Japan) are ready to inject more liquidity into the market. The spread between the 2-year and 10-year U.S. Treasury yields continues to widen, currently at 21 basis points, indicating that the market is optimistic about economic growth.
In addition, US Vice President Kamala Harris expressed positive views on artificial intelligence and digital assets, triggering a rise in related currencies. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved options trading for BlackRock Bitcoin Spot ETF (IBIT), showing that digital assets as an asset class are gaining more and more recognition and demand.
According to Wu, Macquarie has given “outperform” ratings to several Bitcoin mining stocks, including MARA, Riot Platforms, Core Scientific, CleanSpark and Cipher Mining, citing the companies’ increasing shift from crypto-specific businesses to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC) models.
Macquarie believes that several mining companies will benefit greatly in the long term as the shift to high-performance computing accelerates. The analysts also pointed out that while it is still in the early stages of operating AI cloud products in Bitcoin miners' facilities, these companies have the potential to play an important role in the AI computing market.
According to Odaily Planet Daily, a report released by CoinShares shows that Ethereum's transaction demand is concentrated in a few speculative application scenarios, limiting its long-term value growth.
The report points out that while the Ethereum ecosystem is expanding, the main driving force is the willingness of users to pay for transactions, especially on decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap, where transaction fees account for more than 90%. At the same time, stablecoin transactions have also become one of the core activities of the network. With the rise of Layer 2 expansion solutions, the demand for Ethereum has declined, and the challenge in the future is to promote the development of on-chain applications with long-term value.
According to Odaily Planet Daily, Goldman Sachs Chief Financial Officer Denis Coleman believes that the Federal Reserve's recent 50 basis point interest rate cut, despite raising concerns about inflation and recession risks, has laid the foundation for a soft landing of the economy.
"This first 50 basis point cut is a clear sign of the new direction," he said. "I hope it will boost confidence, lower the cost of capital, and potentially foster strategic activity as we approach year end." The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted unexpectedly by some economists to cut its key overnight lending rate to a target range of 4.75% to 5%.
According to TechFlow, Gary Gensler, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), reviewed the major achievements and current work priorities of the SEC in its 90th anniversary at a congressional hearing.
Gensler emphasized that the SEC is committed to protecting investors, maintaining fair, orderly and efficient markets, and promoting capital formation. The U.S. capital market is worth more than $100 trillion, accounting for about 40% of the global capital market. The SEC regulates about 40,000 entities. In the past year, the SEC has implemented a number of important rules involving the disclosure of cybersecurity incidents, SPAC supervision, and climate-related risk disclosure. In fiscal year 2023, the SEC filed a total of 784 enforcement actions, imposed fines and confiscated illegal gains totaling $4.9 billion, and returned $930 million to victimized investors.
Gensler said the SEC will continue to improve market structure and strengthen supervision of the stock and Treasury markets.
● CFTC panel to recommend using blockchain technology to hold and transfer non-cash collateral
According to Bloomberg, tokenized money market funds offered by BlackRock and Franklin Templeton are designed to attract crypto users. A panel of the CFTC's Global Markets Advisory Committee plans to make recommendations by the end of the year to guide registered companies on how to use distributed ledger technology to hold and transfer non-cash collateral. These recommendations will provide market participants with a legal and regulatory framework to support the use of blockchain technology in compliance with institutional margin requirements.
Caroline Butler, co-chair of the panel, said collateral has become a major use case and driver for tokenization. Currently, Franklin fund-related tokens are transferable between institutional shareholders on the Stellar blockchain. In June, Franklin began allowing users to convert USDC stablecoins into U.S. dollars to invest in fund shares. Hidden Road and FalconX have begun accepting BlackRock's BUIDL token as collateral. Almost all companies on Wall Street are working on tokenization projects. State Street is involved in a pilot to automatically calculate margin on foreign exchange forward transactions using distributed ledger technology. Citigroup is working with Wellington Management and WisdomTree to explore the tokenization of private markets. JPMorgan has developed an app that allows investors to use assets as collateral.
Butler, BNY's global head of digital assets, said that over the past 18 months, tokenization has evolved from proof-of-concept to actual use cases, with clients' demand for more efficient use of assets being the main driving force.
According to PANews, Lee Bok-hyun, chairman of the Financial Services Commission (FSS) of South Korea, announced at a meeting with cryptocurrency industry leaders that strict regulatory measures will be taken on the virtual asset market. The FSS will closely monitor the volatility of newly listed tokens, crack down on the spread of unconfirmed rumors, and adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards unfair trading practices.
Lee Bok-hyun stressed the need to resolve regulatory uncertainty and build market trust, and will closely follow international regulatory trends and work with other agencies to develop future regulations. He stressed the importance of quickly implementing industry suggestions, such as issuing real-name bank accounts for businesses, to enhance the global competitiveness of South Korea's cryptocurrency business. The financial authorities plan to incorporate industry feedback into their ongoing regulation of the cryptocurrency industry, aiming to promote a stable market environment.
