A note JPMorgan shared with clients suggests that Bitcoin’s recent price rise above the $50,000 mark was predominantly driven by institutional investors looking for a hedge against inflation and preferring BTC over gold.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved an exchange-traded fund that provides investors with exposure to Bitcoin through a portfolio of companies with significant exposure to the flagship cryptocurrency.

In the course of an investigation into leading stablecoin issuer Tether, Bloomberg reporter Zeke Faux unearthed that the firm has lent “billions of dollars more to other crypto companies, with Bitcoin as collateral.” One of those companies is Celsius Network.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Institutions Are Favoring Bitcoin Over Gold: JPMorgan
• SEC Approves ETF Focusing on Companies with Bitcoin Exposure
• Tether Reportedly Holds $1 Billion on Crypto Lending Platform Celsius
• Crypto Market Movers - SHIB, FTM, AXS

Institutions Are Favoring Bitcoin Over Gold: JPMorgan

A note JPMorgan shared with clients suggests that Bitcoin’s recent price rise above the $50,000 mark was predominantly driven by institutional investors looking for a hedge against inflation and preferring BTC over gold.

The note says the re-emergence of inflation concerns among investors has renewed interest in using the flagship cryptocurrency as an inflation hedge, to the point it’s siphoning investors away from gold.

It reads:

"Institutional investors appear to be returning to Bitcoin perhaps seeing it as a better inflation hedge than gold"

Back in May, when BTC’s price crashed, a report from JPMorgan suggested the contrary: investors were switching out of bitcoin and into the precious metal. JPMorgan believes the recent rally was partly driven by recent assurances by U.S. policymakers that they have no intention to ban crypto, and a rise in adoption of layer-two payments solutions supported by El Salvador’s bitcoin adoption.

SEC Approves ETF Focusing on Companies with Bitcoin Exposure

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved an exchange-traded fund that provides investors with exposure to Bitcoin through a portfolio of companies with significant exposure to the flagship cryptocurrency.

The ETF, called the “Volt Bitcoin Revolution ETF,” filed its initial application in June. Volt Equity, the firm managing the fund, said a significant portion of its assets would be made up of MicroStrategy shares, which has over $6 billion in BTC on its balance sheet.

The fund will consist of shares in approximately 30 companies including Tesla, Square, Coinbase, and PayPal. Twitter, which recently enabled Bitcoin tipping on its platform is also being included.

The Volt Bitcoin Revolution ETF is expected to be less volatile than bitcoin because a plunge in cryptocurrency prices should not affect these businesses’ overall operations. Volt’s fund fees are 0.85% a year.

Tether Reportedly Holds $1 Billion on Crypto Lending Platform Celsius

In the course of an investigation into leading stablecoin issuer Tether, Bloomberg reporter Zeke Faux unearthed that the firm has lent “billions of dollars more to other crypto companies, with Bitcoin as collateral.” One of those companies is Celsius Network.

Tether’s USDT stablecoin currently has a supply of over $70 billion in circulation but its backing has been controversial. Per Faux, the CEO of the cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius, Alex Mashinsky, said the firm has $1 billion of USDT lent to it, and pays an interest rate of 5% to 6% on the funds.

Celsius, along with competitor BlockFi, has become the target of state securities regulators for their interest accounts, as regulators say these are unregistered securities. Tether was notably the lead investor in Celsius Network’s $30 million fund round in June 2020.

Bloomberg’s investigation also found Tether’s reserves include billions of dollars of short-term loans to large Chinese firms. Tether responded to the investigation saying it “ does nothing more than attempt to perpetuate a false and aging story arc about Tether based on innuendo and misinformation.”

Crypto Market Movers – SHIB, FTM, AXS

Several tokens are leading the charge in the last 7-day period. Some of these are well-known cryptocurrencies with more liquid trading pairs, so we’ll be focusing on these over low-cap cryptos that may have higher percentage changes.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) - SHIB is an experiment in decentralized spontaneous community building. SHIB token is the project first token and allows users to hold Billions or even Trillions of them.

Fantom (FTM) – Fantom is a high-performance decentralized platform that supports smart contracts and is designed to overcome the limitations of old-generation blockchains. The FANTOM platform adopts a new protocol known as the “Lachesis Protocol” to maintain consensus. This protocol is intended to be integrated into the Fantom OPERA Chain.

Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) - Axie Infinity Shards are the governance token of the popular blockchain-based game Axie Infinity. The game was created by SkyMavis and allows players to earn income through non-fungible tokens (NFTs), by breeding, battling, and trading digital pets called Axies.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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