Nasdaq-listed business intelligence firm MicroStrategy, known as the largest corporate buyer of Bitcoin, has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to sell as much as $500 million in stock to fund additional BTC purchases.

Banking giant State Street has said that institutional investors are unfazed by the cryptocurrency winter and have maintained their interest in blockchain technology and digital assets despite the market slump.

Google has created a “doodle” that is counting down to Ethereum’s upcoming Merge upgrade as a sign of recognition of the cryptocurrency’s network.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• MicroStrategy to Sell Stock to Fund Bitcoin Purchases
• Institutional Investors Undeterred by Crypto Winter: State Street
• Google ‘Doodle’ Counts Down to Ethereum Merge
• Market Spotlight: August 2022

MicroStrategy to Sell Stock to Fund Bitcoin Purchases

Nasdaq-listed business intelligence firm MicroStrategy, known as the largest corporate buyer of Bitcoin, has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to sell as much as $500 million in stock to fund additional BTC purchases.

The company’s Class A shares will be sold through Cowen and BTIG, two of the most prominent investment banks covering crypto-related stocks. No specific date for the sales was provided, however, the company noted it intends to retain all future earnings to purchase more crypto and to develop its software business.

The timing of the move is notable as it’s the first time Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy’s co-founder and a vocal BTC proponent, has made it clear that he isn’t backing off his plan to turn MicroStrategy into a crypto proxy.

MicroStrategy holds 129,698 BTC, worth nearly $3 billion at the time of writing.

Institutional Investors Undeterred by Crypto Winter: State Street

Banking giant State Street has said that institutional investors are unfazed by the cryptocurrency winter and have maintained their interest in blockchain technology and digital assets despite the market slump.

Irfan Ahmad, the Asia Pacific digital lead for the bank’s crypto unit State Street Digital, added that despite the extreme volatility seen in the market over the summer, the firm’s institutional clients keep making moves in the sector.

“During the course of the June, July period where things were really hotting up in terms of activity, we saw institutional clients not necessarily double down, but they weren’t really deterred from placing strategic bets on the asset class itself.”

State Street is the fund administrator for the Cosmos Purpose Bitcoin Access ETF, and Ahmad said that more crypto product launches are coming to Australia in the “very near future.”

Google ‘Doodle’ Counts Down to Ethereum Merge

Google has created a “doodle” that is counting down to Ethereum’s upcoming Merge upgrade as a sign of recognition of the cryptocurrency’s network.

The Merge describes the network’s current mainnet merging with the Beacon Chain’s PoS system, setting the stage for future scaling upgrades, including sharding. The move is expected to reduce Ethereum’s energy consumption by 99.95%.

Users who type “Ethereum merge” into Google will now be greeted with a doodle counting down to the Merge’s time, including the network’s difficulty rate and hashrate.

The doodle also includes a cartoon of two bears moving towards each other which should merge to create one panda, which is the de facto mascot for Ethereum’s transition to Proof-of-Stake.

Market Spotlight: August 2022

CryptoCompare’s latest Market Spotlight blog post explores the latest trends in the cryptocurrency space with our market-leading data insights.

The Market Spotlight post digs into several topics, including macroeconomics and Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole, Tether’s bold stance on Tornado Cash sanctions, the Ethereum Merge, and EOS hard fork.

The post also goes into derivatives products on Binance and funding rates.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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