The Breakdown First Five - Tuesday, November 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. Michigan Pension Diversifies

The Michigan Pension fund has added to their crypto holdings, buying $10M worth of Ethereum ETFs to go with their existing $7M worth of Bitcoin products. This is a tiny sliver of total assets, but suggests the fund is building out a broader crypto exposure over the long term. In related news, an unnamed UK pension fund has added a 3% allocation to Bitcoin according to industry specialist Cartwright. 

4. Paxos’ New Stablecoin

Paxos have launched a new stablecoin they’re calling the Global Dollar Network. Alongside the USDG token, the firm announced a deep list of industry partners including Anchorage, Kraken and Robinhood. 97% of yield on reserves will be shared with partners. The stablecoin is being issued out of Singapore and designed to comply with local regulations as well as the current state of play in the US. 

3. A16Z Recommits to Fairshake

A16Z has joined Coinbase in committing funds for the 2026 mid-terms. With an additional $23M pledged, Fairshake looks set to have almost $80M in the warchest two years out. Unnamed Washington operatives told Decrypt that having funds ready to go is a big part of the influence game, comparing the new funding to “a reload of the gun.” They said it sends the message that “no matter what happens tomorrow, we're not going away.”

2. Mt Gox Moving Coins

Mt Gox has moved $2.2B worth of Bitcoin to a pair of new wallets. This is the first movement of funds since September and follows the same pattern as prior distributions. The bankrupt estate only has $3B worth of Bitcoin in total to finalize distributions and late creditors are generally larger entities with stronger hands. We shouldn’t see a large market disruption, but Mt Gox continues to have impeccable timing to trigger panic. 

1.  Election Day

Today is the day, the most important election in the history of Bitcoin. The general consensus is that regardless of who ends up in the Whitehouse, Bitcoin adoption and price appreciation will continue. In their research note calling for $200,000 by the end of next year with either result, Bernstein said, “The bitcoin genie is out of the bottle, and it is hard to reverse this course.”