The Breakdown First Five - Tuesday October 24, 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. Coinbase Has Plenty of Bitcoin

Rumors spread on Monday that Coinbase were limiting Bitcoin withdrawals, but the exchange claims that simply isn’t true. A viral customer tweet claimed that a $5000 per week limit had been implemented but later acknowledged that he may have been a security edge case. Coinbase also suffered difficulties processing trades during yesterday’s Bitcoin spike.

4. Binance Loses Another Exec

Binance’s Head of UK operations and the CEO of payment service Bifinity has disclosed that he left the firm in September. Jonathan Farnell joined Binance in May 2021. Bifinity was disbanded in August after a string of controversies, most notably being a point of contention in the Binance.US lawsuit. Binance has now lost over a dozen senior executives since July.

3. Cipherblade “Hijacked”

Former executives of blockchain forensics firm Cipherblade claim the company was subject to a “hostile takeover” by employees. A lawsuit claims that a group of employees commandeered the firm while its founder was abroad, changing passwords and website registrations. The firm continues to operate under new management, but its founder says that signatures were forged, assets pilfered and company illegally stolen from him.

2. Blackrock Gets Set

The Blackrock ETF has a CUSIP and a ticker symbol, IBTC. The asset manager expects to begin seeding the fund with a few million in Bitcoin this month. None of these moves make it a guarantee the ETF will launch soon or even be approved at all, but they’re positive signs that Blackrock is getting prepared for when the time comes.

1. Bitcoin Spikes

After putting in strong sessions throughout the day, Bitcoin absolutely sent during the evening. Bitcoin broke through the $32,000 level then spiked up to $35,000 in minutes. After a quick retrace, price continued to march upwards, staying above $34,000 for most of the overnight session. Analysts pointed to offside options dealers buying spot Bitcoin to hedge their books while narrative traders latched onto an ETF launch. After months of ‘its over’, we’re so back.

Thanks for reading -NLW