Daily News | ARK Announces the Optimal Allocation of Bitcoin; Bitcoin Miner Revenue Decreasing by 13.6% Month on Month in January; Tether's Net Profit Reached A New High in Q4

2024-02-02, 04:23

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## Crypto Daily Digest: ARK Announces Bitcoin's Optimal Configuration, Tether's net profit reached a new high in Q4
On the 15th trading day of <a href="/pt/price/bitcoin-btc" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">Bitcoin</a> spot ETF, there was an outflow of $182 million.

On February 1st, the holdings of grayscale spot Bitcoin ETFs decreased by 5,086 BTCs, equivalent to approximately $218 million. In addition, the holdings of 8 spot Bitcoin ETFs increased by 8,907 BTCs, equivalent to approximately $382 million. Among them, Fidelity's holdings increased the most, reaching 5,422 BTCs, equivalent to approximately $232.6 million.

It is also reported that GBTC had a total outflow of 140,195 Bitcoins in the first 15 trading days, equivalent to approximately $5.832 billion. In January, the daily average trading volume of grayscale GBTC increased by 302.7% month on month, reaching $784 million.

Yesterday, according to the Big Ideas 2024 report released by ARK Invest, research showed that in order to seek maximum risk-adjusted returns, the optimal allocation ratio of Bitcoin in the 2023 investment portfolio is 19.4%, far higher than the 6.2% in 2022. If $250 trillion of global investable assets are allocated to Bitcoin, it will have a significant impact on its price. If 1% of it is allocated, the price of Bitcoin is expected to reach $120,000; If allocated 4.8%, the price of Bitcoin is expected to reach $550,000; If 19.4% is allocated, the price of Bitcoin may rise to $2.3 million.

In addition, the report also points out that smart contracts can promote the origin, ownership, and management of on chain assets, with only a small portion of the financial costs of traditional assets. If financial assets are migrated to the blockchain infrastructure at a speed similar to that adopted by the Internet, and the rate related to decentralized financial services is one third of that of traditional financial services, then smart contracts can generate more than $450 billion of costs every year, create more than $5 trillion of market value, and the <a href="/pt/price/compound-comp" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">Compound</a> annual growth rates by 2030 will be 78% and 32% respectively.

With the correction in Bitcoin prices, BTC miners' revenue in January decreased by 13.6% month on month, reaching $1.35 billion. On the other hand, the <a href="/pt/price/ethereum-eth" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">Ethereum</a> Cancun upgrade is gradually approaching, and ETH pledger revenue increased by 1.4%, reaching $187 million.

It is reported that a total of 75037 ETHs were destroyed in January, equivalent to approximately $180 million. Since the implementation of EIP-1559 in early August 2021, a total of 3.97 million ETHs have been destroyed, equivalent to approximately $10.98 billion.

Meanwhile, the NFT market has also begun to "cool down." According to the sales data of NFTs on 21 blockchains tracked by CryptoSlam, the total sales of NFTs in January 2024 exceeded $1.186 billion, a 32% decrease from $1.75 billion in December last year. Among these sales, Ethereum's on chain NFT sales accounted for 30%, approximately $356 million, ranking first. The sales of NFTs on the Bitcoin chain accounted for 28%, approximately $335 million, ranking second. Next are <a href="/pt/price/solana-sol" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">Solana</a> ($239 million), <a href="/pt/price/polygon-matic" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">Polygon</a> ($112 million), <a href="/pt/price/avalanche-avax" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">Avalanche</a> ($47.34 million), and <a href="/pt/price/immutablex-imx" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">ImmutableX</a> ($22.16 million).

Although the market has cooled down, the stablecoin market has already made a lot of money. According to <a href="/pt/price/tether-usdt" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">Tether</a>'s official blog, Tether Holdings Limited achieved a record net profit of $2.85 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Among them, about $1 billion came from the net operating profit of US treasury bond bonds, and the rest mainly came from the appreciation of gold and Bitcoin reserves. Tether's excess reserves reached a historic high, increasing by $2.2 billion to a total of $5.4 billion. By the end of 2023, the Group's net profit had reached $6.2 billion, of which about $4 billion came from the net operating profit of US treasury bond bonds, reverse repurchase and money market funds.

Tether's combined total assets reached at least $97 billion, while the combined total liabilities were $91.5 billion, of which approximately $91.57 billion was related to the issuance of digital tokens. The report emphasizes that Tether Group's consolidated assets exceed its consolidated liabilities. In addition, Tether Group invested $642 million in sustainable energy, Bitcoin mining, data, artificial intelligence infrastructure, P2P telecommunications technology, and other fields in the fourth quarter of 2023, with a total investment of $1.452 billion since the beginning of the year.

After achieving record profits, stablecoin operator Tether Holdings Ltd. stated that this is a risk for cryptocurrencies as a whole. A report released by JPMorgan on Thursday showed that the centralization level of USDT has been continuously increasing in the past two years, consolidating its position as a leading stablecoin. However, Tether's "lack of regulatory compliance and transparency" has brought increasing risks to the market.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated in a statement: "Tether's market dominance may be 'negative' for competitors, including those in the banking industry, who hope to achieve similar success, but it has never been negative for markets that require us the most. We have been working closely with global regulatory agencies to provide them with education on technology and guidance on how they must think about this issue."

Yesterday, after FTX decided to abandon its restart plan, the price of FTT has dropped by 35% in the past few hours. Currently, FTX and Alameda still hold 76% of the total supply and have not sold in the past two months, even though the FTT price once reached $5.5. In the past few hours, there have been no significant on chain token transfers, only internal exchange transactions. Due to limited circulation and supply, the main participants in FTT transactions are whale players.

According to Deribit data, BTC options with a nominal value exceeding $924 million and ETH options contracts with a nominal value exceeding $509 million will expire and be delivered on Friday (February 2). The maximum pain point price for BTC is $42,000; The maximum pain point price for ETH is $2,300.

Recently, a report released by the Web3 vulnerability reward platform Immunefi showed that in January 2024, crypto users lost $126,782,617 in 19 specific hacking and fraud incidents, a 6-fold increase year-on-year and nearly 3-fold increase month on month. In January 2024, DeFi was the main target of the attack, while CeFi did not experience significant attacks.

Compared to fraud, hacker attacks remain the main cause of losses. In January 2024, a total of $122,709,800 was lost due to 14 specific hacking incidents. In January 2024, vulnerable blockchains were Ethereum and BNBChain, accounting for over 58% of total losses.

## Macro: Gold continues to rise for four consecutive days, focusing on Friday's non-farm payrolls data
On Thursday, the US dollar index reversed its upward trend under pressure from the rise of the pound, falling back to near the 103 level, close to the level before the Federal Reserve announced its interest rate decision on Wednesday, and ultimately closed down 0.446% at 103.06; As concerns about the resurgence of the banking crisis offset the cooling expectations of interest rate cuts, the 10-year US Treasury yield fell below the 3.9% mark and ultimately closed at 3.882%, a new low since the beginning of the year; The two-year US Treasury yield, which is more sensitive to the Federal Reserve's policy interest rates, closed at 4.211%.

The latest US initial unemployment data has been released. The number of initial jobless claims in the US for the week ending January 27th recorded 224,000, a new high since November 11, 2023. The market expectation is 212,000, with a previous value of 214,000. This has caused spot gold to continue to rise after the announcement of initial jobless claims, smoothing out all the losses for the day, reaching a maximum of 2,065.29, and ultimately closing up 0.76% at $2,054.9 per ounce, marking the fourth consecutive trading day of gains, Reaching a new high in half a month. Spot silver ultimately closed up 1.04% at $23.18 per ounce.

Impacted by media reports that Hamas Israel is expected to reach a ceasefire agreement, international crude oil prices plummeted during trading, turning from gains to losses and reaching a new closing low since January 23rd. WTI crude oil fell 2.54% to $73.82 per barrel; Brent crude oil closed 2.08% lower at $78.77 per barrel. The three major US stock indexes collectively closed higher, with the Dow Jones up 0.97%, the S&P 500 up 1.25%, and the Nasdaq up 1.3%.

The number of initial and continuing claims for unemployment benefits in the United States has both climbed to two month high levels, indicating a certain degree of slowdown in the labor market. But the Atlanta Federal Reserve's GDPNow model predicts that the US GDP growth rate in the first quarter will be 4.2%, compared to the previous estimate of 3.0%.

According to data released by the United States on Thursday, the number of initial jobless claims increased by 9,000 to 224,000 in the week ending January 27th, while a survey conducted by foreign media on economists showed a median forecast of 212,000. As of the week ending January 20th, the number of people applying for unemployment benefits has increased to 1.9 million.

Over the past year, despite high-interest rates, the US labor market has continued to surpass economists' predictions. However, there are currently signs that the labor market is cooling down. Compared to the peak recovery period after the epidemic, the number of resignations has decreased; Meanwhile, the recent large-scale layoff plans announced by multiple companies, including United Parcel Service (UPS), may be an early signal of rising unemployment rates in the coming months.

On Friday, the United States will release January's non-farm payroll data, which will further reveal the state of the labor market. However, this non-agricultural report may be affected by seasonal factors and the adjustment of statistical benchmarks in January, and it is necessary to be cautious of the uncertainty caused by this. Presently, the market expects it to increase by 180,000 people, which is slower than the previous increase of 216,000 people.

<div class="blog-details-info">
<div>Author:**Byron B.**, Gate.io Researcher
<div>Translator:Joy Z.
<div class="info-tips">\*This article represents only the views of the researcher and does not constitute any investment suggestions.
<div>\*Gate.io reserves all rights to this article. Reposting of the article will be permitted provided Gate.io is referenced. In all cases, legal action will be taken due to copyright infringement.
</div>

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