Some of the largest university endowment funds in the U.S. have reportedly been quietly buying bitcoin for the past year through accounts at Coinbase and other cryptocurrency exchanges.

Michael Novogratz’s cryptocurrency investment firm Galaxy Digital is set to launch funds for Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency ether.

Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has received 657 BTC in donations over the past five years, with the pace of donations accelerating last week after his arrest in Moscow.

Sponsored: 

Crypto.com is pleased to announce that NEAR Protocol (NEAR) will be listed on Supercharger, a one-click liquidity mining platform on the Crypto.com Exchange. 

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• University Endowments Have Been Buying Bitcoin for a Year
• Galaxy Digital to Launch Ethereum Funds
• Bitcoin Donations to Russian Opposition Leader Navalny Surge
• Sponsored: Crypto.com Exchange’s One-Click Liquidity Mining Platform is featuring NEAR

University Endowments Have Been Buying Bitcoin for a Year

Some of the largest university endowment funds in the U.S. have reportedly been quietly buying bitcoin for the past year through accounts at Coinbase and other cryptocurrency exchanges.

Harvard, Yale, Brown and the University of Michigan as well as several other colleges have reportedly been buying up bitcoin directly from exchanges after several Ivy League endowments took an interest in blockchain technology via a crypto-focused venture back in 2018.

CoinDesk quotes unnamed sources saying there are “quite a few” university endowments “allocating a little bit to crypto at the moment.” The sources added:

“Most have been in at least a year. I would think they will probably discuss it publicly at some point this year. I suspect they would be sitting on some pretty nice chunks of return.”

Harvard has the largest university endowment with over $40 billion in assets, while Yale has over $30 billion and Michigan has about $12.5 billion. Brown holds $4.7 billion. How much each allocated to crypto is unknown.

Galaxy Digital to Launch Ethereum Funds

Michael Novogratz’s cryptocurrency investment firm Galaxy Digital is set to launch funds for Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency ether.

The firm, according to documents shared with clients, is launching the Galaxy Ethereum Fund and two other ETH-focused funds geared toward onshore and offshore institutional investors. The Galaxy Ethereum Fund aims to provide exposure to ether and its assets will be held in custody by Gemini.

Galaxy will charge a management fee of 1% for investments above $100,000, and 1.25% for investments below that amount, with the minimum required to invest being $25,000. The onshore and offshore funds will have fees of 0.75% and 1% for Class A and Class B shares.

The firm sees Ethereum’s ether as a high-growth investment opportunity, as in its point of view “investing in ETH is similar to investing in a basket of early-stage, high-growth technology stocks that provide investors exposure to the explosion of next-gen smart contracts and decentralized applications.”

Bitcoin Donations to Russian Opposition Leader Navalny Surge

Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has received 657 BTC in donations over the past five years, with the pace of donations accelerating last week after his arrest in Moscow.

Bitcoin donations are not widespread in Russia, and only a handful of nonprofits accept the cryptocurrency. Since his arrest, Navalny has received 3.7 BTC, worth over $110,000, which is nearly three times as much as he received in the first two weeks of the year, and more than what was received in all of 2020.

Leonid Volkov, who is coordinating Navalny’s volunteer network in Russia, said:

“Both bitcoin and fiat donations spiked after the investigation release and [Navalny’s] arrest, and the share of bitcoin grew a bit because of a couple [of] large donations.”

One of the donations reportedly came from Evgeny Chichvarkin, a Russian millionaire in exile, who donated a full bitcoin. The donations are surging at a time in which thousands of Russians have taken to the streets to protest Navalny’s arrest.

What is the Best Time to Transact on Ethereum?

Transaction fees on the Ethereum network have been increasing rapidly since late July 2020, when “the Summer DeFi Boom” visibly started. But the network congestion caused by increasing demand in DeFi did not end with the summer - it has only gotten worse. On January 4th this year, Ethereum fees reached an average of $17.44 per transaction.

And while Ethereum has started tackling the issue - the transition to a faster proof-of-stake mining algorithm could take years to complete.

How to read the graph: These boxplots show average fees per day in 2020 for every hour. The bars are where most of the data falls. The black dots are outliers.

Crypto.com Exchange’s One-Click Liquidity Mining Platform is featuring NEAR

Crypto.com is pleased to announce that NEAR Protocol (NEAR) will be listed on Supercharger, a one-click liquidity mining platform on the Crypto.com Exchange. 

Crypto.com Exchange users will receive NEAR as rewards for depositing CRO tokens into the Supercharger pool. 

Event Timeline:

• 28 Jan 2:00pm UTC: Charging Period Begins 
• 27 Feb 2:00pm UTC: Charging Period Ends 
• 28 Feb 12:00pm UTC: Acceptance Period Begins 
• 1 Mar 12:00pm UTC: Reward Distribution Period Begins 
• 31 Mar 12:00pm UTC: Reward Distribution Period Ends

Charging Duration (First 30 days)

Users can deposit and withdraw from the Supercharger pool (with no gas fees) at any time during the Charging Period. Price of the reward token is determined at the end of this period.

Reward Distribution Period (Next 30 days)

Users will receive their reward tokens during the Reward Distribution Period based on their share of the liquidity provided during the Charging Period. Their eligible reward tokens will be distributed daily during this 30 day period after accepting the reward terms. Users will forfeit a portion of their reward if they do not accept the terms before the Reward Distribution Period begins

Allocation:

The total allocation amount is USD 250,000 in NEAR.

Rewards Calculation 

Find out how to calculate your rewards here.

NOTE: 

• Participants may withdraw their CRO deposits from the pool at any time.
• Participants can make multiple deposits throughout the duration of the event.
• If the participant fails to accept their reward allocation before Rewards Distribution Period begins, they will lose the portion of the reward that was scheduled to be distributed. They are still entitled to the remaining portion of their reward, and can redeem it by logging in to the Exchange and accepting their allocation.
• Crypto.com reserves the right to cancel or amend the Supercharger campaign rules at its sole discretion.

Sign up for the Crypto.com Exchange, deposit CRO and prepare to earn NEAR!

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