Bitcoin steadies amid global rate cuts as PayPal expands crypto offerings
DATA from CryptoCompare shows that the price of Bitcoin is where it was a week ago, despite seeing a surge to briefly top the $66,000 mark throughout the week, it endured a correction that saw it plunge back to $63,640 this afternoon.
Ethereum’s Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, went down around 1% over the past week despite seeing an initial surge to top the $2,700 mark, the cryptocurrency’s price endured a correction to now trade at $2,600.
Headlines in the cryptocurrency space this week have revealed that Bitcoin is on track to register one of its best Septembers on record, bucking the trend of its poor historical performance for the month.
The cryptocurrency has so far seen its price rise by more than 7.5%, while historical data from CCData shows that from 2010 to 20203, in September it averaged a drop of 4.51%, making it its worst-performing month on record. In contrast, April and November typically show the highest average returns.
The Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and People's Bank of China all lowered borrowing costs in September to stimulate economic growth, a move that was met with a positive response from investors who bid up stocks, gold, and other assets.
Over-the-counter cryptocurrency brokers in China, in fact, have attracted record inflows as investors seek alternative investments in the country. A study conducted by Chainalysis has found inflows topped $20 billion in each of the first three quarters of the years for a total of $75.4 billion over nine months.
Meanwhile institutions have increasingly started turning to Bitcoin-backed lending, as fiat currency interest rates are now tightening. Ledn, a prominent player in the Bitcoin-backed lending space, revealed it has seen a significant uptick in interest from institutional investors while market research firm HFT Market Intelligence found that the Bitcoin lending market now comprises around $8.5 billion in outstanding BTC-backed loans and could grow to $45 billion by 2030.
PayPal expands crypto offerings to business clients in US
Global payments giant PayPal is set to start allowing its business clients in the United States to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies directly from their accounts after receiving demand from business owners to access these assets.
The company has been offering features to its individual users for several years on both PayPal and Venmo, and is now also set to allow U.S. merchants to transfer cryptocurrency on-chain to eligible third-party wallets in a service that will, at first, be unavailable in the state of New York.
This week also saw Guggenheim Treasury Services, a subsidiary of financial services giant Guggenheim Partners, announced the issuance of $20 million in tokenized commercial paper on the Ethereum blockchain.
Meanwhile the entity behind the decentralized stablecoin protocol Ethena, Ethena Labs, revealed it’s working on launching a new stablecoin backed by BlackRock’s tokenized BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL).
The new stablecoin, Ustb (USTB), will serve as a distinct stablecoin product alongside Ethena's existing synthetic dollar stablecoin, USDe, which was launched in February. The announcement detailed that UStb could help USDe during “periods of weak funding conditions.”
This week also saw Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase reveal plans to launch its cbBTC token on the Solana blockchain. The token, Coinbase’s version of wrapped Bitcoin, was first launched on Ethereum and Base, and quickly saw its market capitalization surpass the $100 million mark.
Doctors argue Sam Bankman-Fried’s neurodivergence hurt his trial defense
A group of eight doctors specialising in neurodivergence submitted an amicus brief in support of Sam Bankman-Fried’s appeal, arguing that his autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) negatively impacted his trial proceedings
The founder of FTX was, in March, sentenced to 25 years in prison for defrauding FTX’s customers out of $11 billion. The doctors argued that his neurodivergence led to answers that were interpreted as evasive, before he made a “significant course correction” once the jury was present where he provided concise answers that may have appeared as arrogant or indifferent.
Meanwhile Caroline Ellison, former CEO of FTX’s sister firm Alameda Research, received a two-year prison sentence for her role in the FTX fraud, with Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordering Ellison to forfeit $11 billion and serve three years of supervised release post-incarceration.
Kaplan praised Ellison's cooperation, stating he had never seen a cooperator quite like her in his 30-year career. However, he maintained the case's severity warranted prison time, explaining that such a serious case couldn't warrant a complete exemption from incarceration.
Francisco Memoria is a content creator at CryptoCompare who’s in love with technology and focuses on helping people see the value digital currencies have. His work has been published in numerous reputable industry publications. Francisco holds various cryptocurrencies.
