Elon Reveals Crypto Portfolio | Record-Breaking FTX Funding

“I MIGHT PUMP BUT I DON’T DUMP”

If you missed THE talk of the week, a.k.a. the discussion held as the keynote event of “The B Word” conference, featuring Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood and Jack Dorsey, chief executive of Twitter and Square, here’s the quick recap:

• Elon Musk said SpaceX also owns bitcoin and revealed that his personal crypto portfolio consists of bitcoin, ether and dogecoin. He has also assured the public he won’t be selling any of those investments in the near future, “If the price of bitcoin goes down, I lose money. I might pump, but I don’t dump.”
   
• Musk also hinted Tesla may soon start accepting bitcoin as payment for its electric vehicles again. In May, the car manufacturer halted the initiative, citing concerns over the environmental footprint of bitcoin mining.
   
• Dorsey said he will be “pushing for more decentralization” at both Twitter and Square, as evidenced by his claim that bitcoin will be a “big part” of Twitter’s future, voiced the following day.

ONE FOR THE BOOKS

The record for the industry’s biggest private deal was blown out of the water this week, as crypto derivatives exchange FTX closed a jaw-dropping $900 million Series B round from more than 60 investors, including Paradigm, Sequoia Capital and SoftBank . The round values the two-year-old firm, which was worth just $1.2 billion a year ago, at $18 billion, underpinning the exchange’s meteoric growth. This year, FTX increased revenues tenfold and 75 times since its Series A funding round, closed in mid-2020. Today, the platform averages more than $10 billion in daily trading volume.

The deal has also boosted the net worth of FTX’s billionaire founder and CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, by at least $7.9 billion to $16.2 billion, thus cementing his title of the wealthiest known crypto billionaire.

Among other notable VC deals this week stands the $100 million funding round raised by popular NFT marketplace OpenSea, making it a unicorn at a $1.5 billion valuation. Venture giant Andreessen Horowitz led the investment, signaling investors’ confidence in the future of non-fungible tokens, which have lost steam since their February and early March highs.

THE LARGEST BANK IN THE U.S. DOUBLES DOWN ON CRYPTO

JPMorgan has reportedly become the first major U.S. bank to provide all wealth-management clients with access to bitcoin and other cryptocurrency funds. Advisors in JPMorgan’s $630 billion wealth management division can now accept orders to buy and sell five crypto products , including Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust, Bitcoin Cash Trust, Ethereum Trust, Ethereum Classic products and Osprey Funds’ Bitcoin Trust. The policy change became effective on July 19, according to an internal memo obtained by Business Insider. Previously, JPM only allowed private wealth clients to invest in an actively managed bitcoin fund, with crypto firm NYDIG providing custody services. 

BLOCKFI

On Monday evening the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office issued a Summary Cease and Desist Order to New Jersey-based multibillion-dollar bitcoin financial services platform BlockFi to stop offering interest-bearing accounts. The order contended that BlockFi has been funding and facilitating its cryptocurrency lending and trading operations at least partly through the sale of unregistered securities in alleged violation of relevant securities laws. BlockFi is now blocked from opening more interest-bearing accounts for New Jersey residents. The regulatory trouble does not end there for BlockFi as securities and regulators are also asking for BlockFi to demonstrate these products do not violate their laws. In response, BlockFi is contending that these products are legal and is rumored to be closing a $500 Series E round of funding on July 27.

BLOCKCHAIN 50 SPOTLIGHT: TELEFONICA

The Spanish telecom uses blockchain to track 4 million home-equipment devices. It has also invested in Zamna, a blockchain-enabled data platform that helps airlines verify passengers’ identities prior to arriving at an airport, and it has teamed up with IBM to use blockchain to manage international calls

ELSEWHERE

Crypto Nomads: Surfing the World for Risk and Profit [NYTimes]

Coinbase And Top Execs Face Securities Class Action Over Nasdaq Listing [Cointelegraph]

Amazon Is Looking to Hire a Digital Currency Lead [CoinDesk]

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