All Been Crypto — Week 17 Jan 2025
We back at 100k after a 9% wow rally in BTC and ETH at 3300 +5%. The big outperformers however, Fartcoin +60% making it into the top 100, XRP, HBAR +45%, XLM +25% after Trump apparently saying he favors US created coins. LTC +23% after talks it could be the next approved ETF. In the news we had some more M&A rumors this time high profile, of course more speculation on what Trump will and will not say regarding crypto next week at inauguration, Tether deploying their new stablecoin base layer on Krakens Ink, and some restrictions on Korea’s largest exchange and Sony’s Soneium is getting some backlash for blocking wallets over IP infringements. We live in interesting times, enjoy reading and the ride!
Bat Tai Chi — btc21@mail.com
HEADLINES:
Deribit for sale
According to Bloomberg the largest crypto derivatives platform has drawn interest from potential acquirers and is working with a financial adviser to review opportunities. Rumors are of a 5bn valuation. This is interesting because the institutionalization narrative and the huge flow into ETFs with the launch of options on iBIT Deribit has so far helped it’s volumes grow nearly doubling YoY in 2024 to 1.2tn. M&A seems to be a more likely outcome as larger institutions are coming and scale is becoming more important. The threat of iBIT eating into their lunch is obviously real as so far trading limits prevented institutions to really utilized in full scale. Expect both to grow significantly in 2025 though iBIT options and Deribit volumes.
Upbit ordered to suspend business
South Korea’s financial regulator has ordered Upbit to suspend operations as a penalty for alleged violations of AML policies. The Financial Intelligence Unit, an agency under the country’s top financial regulator, reportedly notified Upbit on Jan. 9 of the penalty. Upbit has until next Monday to submit its opinion on the penalty to the FIU, with the final decision on the penalty expected the following day. Once the penalty is finalized, Upbit — Koreas largest exchange — could face restrictions in engaging in business with new customers for up to six months, Maeil reported. The FIU reportedly conducted on-site inspections after Upbit filed an application to renew its business license in August. The agency found around 700,000 instances of suspected violations in know-your-customer obligations, according to Maeil. Under South Korea’s Act of Reporting and Use of Specific Financial Information, Upbit could face fines of up to 100 million Korean won ($68,596) per violation. The local news report said the FIU has taken issue with Upbit servicing overseas traders, as local regulations limit domestic exchanges to serving only real name-verified South Korean citizens. Apparently some PBs have been using this loophole to give access as there are of curse lucrative arbitrage opportunities between Upbit and offshore exchanges.
Tether new HQ and new Chains
The company moving their headquarter from the BVI to El Salvadore, this comes after the company has recently received a licence as digital asset service provider there. Of course that’s a bold step as they will for the first time have real physical headquarters. Tether is upping their game big time with investments across the space and obviously having a strong ally in the new Trump administration with prev Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick becoming the new Commerce Secretary. Tether is also upping its tech on their bread and butter stablecoin business with the first deployment of USDT0 on Krakens L2 Ink. The token leverages LayerZero’s omnichain token standard and should help facilitate bridge USDT between different chains. This is clearly a move towards USDCs turf because so far onchain activity has been dominated by the second largest stablecoin.
QUOTES:
USDD 2.0 is about to launch with a 20% APY, fully subsidized by TronDAO. All interest will be sent in advance to a transparent address. There’s no other reason — it’s simply because we have plenty of money. So, stop asking me questions like “where does the yield come from.
Justin Sun — Tron Founder
We had heard chatter that the Litecoin S-1 had gotten comments back from SEC. This looks to confirm that which bodes well for our prediction that Litecoin is most likely to be the next coin approved. All that said, new SEC chair has yet to start and that’s a huge variable.
Eric Balchunas — Bloomberg ETF Analyst
Given the level of economic activity the network [Solana] has achieved and the subsequent revenue earned by stakers from MEV, now is a good time to revisit the network’s emission mechanism and evolve it from a fixed-schedule mechanism to a programmatic, market-driven mechanism.
Tushar Jain — Multicoin Partner
All Been Crypto — Week 17 Jan 2025 was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.