The Breakdown First Five - Friday, September 4, 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. Satoshi Revealed?

A new HBO documentary will seek to uncover Satoshi’s identity. Wildly misleading marketing heavily suggests that Satoshi will be revealed without making the clear promise, instead saying “its findings will shock the world, even the US election.” Rather than the usual picks of Adam Back or Hal Finney, there are rumors the show will explore the evidence to support deceased hacker Len Sassaman as the true Satoshi. 

4. Binance Loses Market Share

Binance has seen eroding market share over recent months with a sharp drop in September to hit a 4 year low. The exchange lost 20% of spot volume last month and now processes just 27% of spot trades. A similar loss in derivatives volume left Binance with 40% of market share. Crypto.com was the largest beneficiary, now commanding 40% of the combined market. This suggests their new Singaporean license is already paying dividends. 

3. Tokenize the World. 

Big tokenization announcements from Visa, SWIFT and the CFTC, which all point to blockchain rails being linked into trad-fi sooner rather than later. Visa is opening a tokenization sandbox with an Argentine bank testing it with stablecoins. SWIFT will run a live test of blockchain interoperability with their existing system. And the CFTC is considering adding tokenized money market fund to the list of accepted collateral on regulated exchanges.

2. Metaplanet’s Complex Strategy

Metaplanet, the failing Japanese hotel turned Bitcoin holding company, has sold $1.4M worth of Bitcoin put options in an attempt to boost their accumulation strategy. The firm has applied the Microstrategy playbook to gather 530BTC. For their next purchase of 223BTC, they committed to buy at $62,000 by selling puts, gathering a 10% premium by providing insurance to trading firms. The bet is a winner is Bitcoin is between $55,300 and $69,400 by the end of the year. 

1.  JPM: Bitcoin Safe Haven

JP Morgan analysts are feverishly looking for a safe haven asset amid rising global turmoil. They suggest that investors are looking to pile into the “'debasement trade' thus favoring both gold and bitcoin.” The research note goes on to suggest that gold has already exceeded expectations during its latest bull run, implying that Bitcoin could be poised for a catch up. Fairly notable to have major macro analysts promoting the Bitcoin safe haven narrative.