The Breakdown First Five - Wednesday, June 5, 2024

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. Lone Star Trading 

A consortium led by Blackrock and Citadel Securities have backed a rival national stock exchange to be based in Texas. The Texas Stock Exchange has raised $120M in funding and with hopes to begin trading next year, with new listings in 2026. The exchange will be entirely electronic and aims to cut compliance costs. Backers of the exchange said it would be pro-CEO and would reject board diversity mandates that have become a requirement for Nasdaq listings.

4. Lawmakers Urge Hostage Negotiations

A group of 12 lawmakers have urged the State Department to deal with the detention of Binance compliance officer Tigran Gambrayan in Nigeria as a top priority hostage negotiation. Gambaryan is being tried for money laundering and tax evasion, charges the lawmakers claim are “baseless and constitute a coercion tactic.” Gambaryan has been held for three months and has recently been denied treatment for Malaria. Lawmakers said “We fear for his life.”

3. Fidelity Exec: Most Investors Should Buy Bitcoin

Fidelity’s head of digital asset strategies has argued that most investors should stop overthinking and just allocate to Bitcoin. Matt Horne said that a lot of professional investors lean on modeling asset classes, a luxury that isn’t available for Bitcoin. Instead, he said that investors should just “understand why you might want to own this, understand the potential of this technology, and then position accordingly." 

2. SEC Shutters in Utah

The SEC will shut down their Utah office later this year citing staff attrition. The Utah office was behind the disgraceful Debt Box lawsuit and also failed to take action against Safemoon until well after the damage was done. Two litigators were forced out of the agency after Debt Box, but the office closure raises more general questions about staff attrition under Chairman Gary Gensler.

1. ETF Flows Roar Higher

The past few weeks have seen Bitcoin ETF flows trend higher, but they were nothing compared to Tuesday’s monster inflows. Fidelity led the pack with $378M, contributing to the second largest inflow day at $887M overall. While price action has been choppy, the Bitcoin ETFs quietly stacked $2.9B over a 16 day inflow streak. Blackrock hit $20B at the fastest pace ever. Bitcoin ETFs have taken in more almost 18 months worth of block rewards so far this year.