Blockchain & cryptocurrency market summary news – May 21
Billionaire Steven Cohen's investment fund owns 77.5 million USD Bitcoin spot ETF
At the end of Q1/2024, billionaire Steven Cohen's $34 billion investment fund - Point72 - owned $77.5 million in Bitcoin spot ETF Fidelity Wise Origin (FBTC). This is one of the 13 leading US hedge funds that have invested in the Bitcoin spot ETF. Other funds such as Elliott Capital, Millennium, Fortress, Schonfeld also hold large amounts of Bitcoin spot ETFs. SWIB (Wisconsin Investment Board) owns more than 163 million USD, Susquehanna invests 1.3 billion USD in 10 Bitcoin ETFs. Large banks such as Morgan Stanley, RBC, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo also hold hundreds of millions of USD in Bitcoin spot ETFs for customers. Owning an ETF is not only for long-term investment but also serves purposes such as liquidity, risk prevention, and yield generation.
Vitalik Buterin points out solutions to overcome threats to decentralization on Ethereum
Vitalik Buterin, a key developer of Ethereum, proposes solutions to three main challenges that threaten the decentralization of the Ethereum network. Regarding MEV, Buterin suggests “Minimize MEV” and “Isolate MEV” by separating the task of selecting transactions. For Liquid Staking, he proposed limiting token creation and requiring project censorship. Regarding node hardware requirements, Buterin recommends relaxing standards and encouraging popular devices. Ethereum developers emphasize that solving these challenges is necessary to maintain the decentralization of the network.
Genesis plans to return $3 billion in assets
Genesis filed for bankruptcy in early 2023 following losses from the collapse of Three Arrows Capital and FTX, leaving the company with debt of up to $3.5 billion. Recently, Genesis was approved by the court to refund about 3 billion USD, equivalent to 77% of the value of customers' locked assets from November 2022 when the company temporarily stopped withdrawing money. Notably, Genesis' parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG) will not receive this payment. DCG proposed to limit the value of claims to the January 2023 price to reduce the value of the debt, but this proposal was not accepted because the claim amount was up to 32 billion USD. Genesis' largest creditor is Gemini Earn, and Gemini Earn users will begin receiving assets owed to them at the end of May, with approximately 97% of the initial debt repaid.
Gnosis price increased 20% after the proposal to use 30 million USD to buy back tokens
The Gnosis (GNO) project proposes to use 30 million USD from the DAO treasury to buy back GNO tokens in 6 months. This proposal was made by Thanefield Capital investment fund, who believe that GNO's market value is undervalued compared to Gnosis DAO's total assets of 730 million USD.
Thanefield Capital recommends two acquisition strategies: using TWAP for 6 months or a flexible allocation of $15 million based on the market. The proposal was supported by 12/14 community members. After approval, GNO price increased by 20%.
