The Breakdown First Five - Monday June 26, 2023

Welcome back to The Breakdown First Five — the 5 most interesting and/or important stories in bitcoin, crypto, and markets to start your day.

5. IMF: Crypto Bans Ineffective

After spending the last few ramming a Crypto ban into every aid package, the IMF said in a new post that bans were ineffective over the long run. Instead, countries should focus on tackling the demand for Crypto by upgrading digital payments infrastructure as well as including Crypto payments in national statistics. The IMF had previously called for a “coordinated response” over fears Crypto adoption threatened the global monetary system.

4. Prime distrust

Nevada regulators have ordered Prime Trust to stop all operations as the custodian is at a “critically deficient level”. Bitgo walked away from its planned acquisition on Thursday, leaving Prime Trust flailing. The regulator said the firm had “materially and willfully breached its fiduciary duties to its clients”. Deposits and withdrawals are currently halted, impacting TUSD among other large clients.

3. Degens in Public markets

The first leveraged Bitcoin ETF will launch on Tuesday, allowing customers to get 2x exposure to already wildly volatile price action. The fund will hold Bitcoin futures rather than spot. The ETF will seek to track daily price action at 2x but will likely bleed a lot over the longer term, like all other futures products. Is it so much to ask to just have an ETF that owns some spot Bitcoin?

2. Coinbase wins in the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Coinbase. This isn’t any of the major cases against the SEC which were recently filed, instead the case was about whether customers have the right to sue Coinbase rather than enter into arbitration. The terms of service for the exchange held up, allowing them to force disgruntled customers into private arbitration rather than face class action lawsuits.

1. $30k never felt so good

Bitcoin held onto the $30,000 level all weekend, closing the highest weekly candle since March. While the institutional narrative drove the largest ETF inflows in over a year, others are skeptical about a sustained rally. For now though, Bitcoin is trading above $30,000 and the hot ball of money is flowing into major DeFi tokens. Geopolitical tensions and a divergence from tradfi markets could make for choppy and volatile conditions.

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Thanks for reading -NLW