Daily Flash | BlackRock Launches First Bitcoin Private Trust, MakerDAO Plans to Depeg From Dollar, And Ethereum Final Testnet Goes Live

Today's Headline - BlackRock launches private trust offering direct bitcoin exposure: The Block Report

BlackRock has launched a spot bitcoin private trust to give its U.S.-based institutional clients direct exposure to the world’s most popular cryptocurrency. The trust will be BlackRock's first product that offers direct exposure to the price of bitcoin.

BlackRock said in a statement,

"Despite the steep downturn in the digital asset market, we are still seeing substantial interest from some institutional clients in how to efficiently and cost-effectively access these assets using our technology and product capabilities.”

Earlier in 2021, BlackRock filed that its Global Allocation fund had gained some exposure to bitcoin, through CME's bitcoin futures offering. This came two months after two BlackRock funds, including the Blackrock Global Allocation Fund, indicated in regulatory filings that they would potentially obtain exposure to crypto markets by way of CME's bitcoin futures product.

BlackRock, which manages around $9 trillion of customer funds, will use Coinbase Prime to provide the service.

Chart of the Day - Total Stablecoin Supply Crossed $150B

Notable gainers include:
Energy Web (EWT) at $3.93 (+48.28%),
Ankr Network (ANKR) at $0.0486 (+38.58%),
Maple Finance (MPL) at $20.58 (+15.95%).

Notable losers include:
PolySwarm (NCT) at $0.0180 (-11.83%),
Injective Protocol (INJ) at $1.98 (-10.23%),
Refereum (RFR) at $0.00737 (-11.96%).

bitcoin (BTC) is down by 4.39% over the past 24 hours, while Ether (ETH) is down by 2.55%.

In terms of technical outlook, BTC was unable to sustain the weekly resistance zone of $24,269 - $24,298 on Thursday. Meanwhile, the successful launch of Ethereum’s final testnet merge was unable to thrust the cryptocurrency above its monthly resistance zone of $1,918 - $1,947.

With the 20-day EMA on both BTC & ETH sloping higher, the bears will likely take advantage of further weakness when the bulls attempt to break their respective resistance zones.

As the cryptocurrency market correlates highly with the U.S. equity market, it is important to keep an eye out for the latter’s performance. The Nasdaq, which is still down 18% for the year, fell 0.58%, while the S&P 500, declined 0.07%. The Dow Jones Industrial Index was up by 0.08%.

Influencer of the Day - MakerDAO Founder Calls on DAI to Drop Dollar Peg Amid Tornado Cash Fallout: CoinDesk Report

On Thursday in an interview with CoinDesk, Rune Christensen said the U.S. Treasury Department's sanctioning coin mixer Tornado Cash may be ushering in “a new era for DeFi” and has “opened the door to the possibility of any protocol getting a sanction,” adding that the decision to sanction a smart contract was “useless and pointless,” in that it will be impossible for the government to enforce its ban.

This week, members of the MakerDAO community began preparing a “contingency plan” in case the sanction affects its “core” wallets. Of particular concern is the large amount of USDC, a stablecoin issued by the regulatory-compliant Centre Consortium.

More than a third of DAI is backed by USDC, while about a quarter of its reserves is in ether (ETH). If that ETH or USDC is found to have interacted with Tornado, it could be frozen – leaving Maker with a shortfall.

In a move to tether DeFi to the larger, traditional economy, MakerDAO has been working to integrate what it calls “real world assets.” This includes getting into the mortgage industry, and also potentially allowing people to collateralize non-crypto assets.

Buzzes of Yesterday - #Ethereum Final Testnet Merge Goes Live, #Pudgy Penguin NFT Floor Price Surges On Merch Announcement

Suspected Tornado Cash developer arrested in Amsterdam

Ethereum’s Third and Final Testnet Merge Goes Live on Goerli

Celsius Creditors Move to Block Company From Selling Mined bitcoin

Blur Finance allegedly rug-pulled, investors at a combined $600K loss

Unstoppable Finance Raises $12.8M to Build DeFi Wallet

Pudgy Penguins NFT Prices Surge After Creator Unveils IRL Toys

bitcoin miner Hut 8 reports $69 million second-quarter net loss

Core Scientific beats on revenue, posts net loss in second quarter

DeFi-focused trading app Structure launches in El Salvador, plans further expansion

Buenos Aires to Deploy Ethereum Validator Nodes in 2023

Indian Authorities Freeze Nearly $46M in Assets of Crypto Lender Vauld

Author: Gate.io Researcher Peter L.
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