HOLDING CRYPTO!!
HOLDING CRYPTO: Crypto funds have shrunk to their lowest level since the 2021 summer bear market. Investors pulled out some $143 million from digital asset funds, the year's second-largest outflow, CoinShares reported. The value of assets under management held by digital-asset funds stands now at $38 billion since May 20.
"Confidence in crypto has been flailing given both retail and institutional investors that got into crypto over the past year are deeply in the red," Edward Moya, senior market analyst at the trading platform Oanda, told CoinDesk.
Still, according to an unrelated Federal Reserve survey measuring economic health, 12% of adults held cryptocurrency in 2021. Though only 3% of respondents said they sent a transaction, according to the first Fed survey to bother asking the question.
Finally, Paradigm’s Fred Ehrsam purchased roughly $75 million worth of shares of Coinbase (COIN) last week, after the crypto exchange's stock 70% price plunged following the company’s weak earnings report.
SYSTEMIC RISK: Goldman Sachs (GS) found that the Terra collapse could create “system risks” in the largest Ethereum staking pool called Lido. Due to a conversion error, users are unable to change their staked ether (ETH) on Terra into a less-risky investment, so Lido’s stETH was trading at a 4.5% discount to ETH, Goldman said in a Friday report.
CRYPTO IN SPACE! Defense contractor Lockheed Martin (LMT) and the Filecoin Foundation are working on an open-source blockchain to be used in space, the two organizations announced Monday at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting.
Lockheed and Filecoin plan to identify a satellite or other space-faring platform that can hold the technology to operate an InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) node, an alternative internet system for addressing and propagating data.
SPARKSTER’S ETH SPARKED: A wallet associated with the ICO-funded project Sparkster converted $22 million worth of its raised ether (ETH) to USDC after three years of dormancy. The project leaders had promised investors a “no-code” software-creation platform and raised a total of $30 million in crypto in 2018 – but never delivered.
Some are accusing the project of foul play and for the funds to be blacklisted.
CRYPTO IN BUSINESS: GameStop (GME) unveiled its crypto and non-fungible token wallet, sending its shares up 3%. A beta version of this self-custodial Ethereum wallet is available to download now from GameStop's website, and comes ahead of its NFT marketplace.
Elsewhere, Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui Trust will form a new company to offer digital asset custody services to institutional investors perturbed by the risk of cryptocurrency theft. Japanese rival Nomura (NMR) just put something similar on offer.
Finally.
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