Crypto-friendly Lee Jae-myung was elected as South Korea’s new president on Wednesday, defeating the incumbent Conservative Party’s leader Kim Moon-soo. During the election Lee made a number of promises to South Korea’s crypto industry, appealing to the nation’s 15 million crypto investors. These included legalizing spot cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds and allowing institutional investors like the…
The Ethereum Foundation is adopting a more structured and transparent treasury policy that ties operational costs and cash needs to its Ether reserves and sales to strengthen its financial position as it anticipates a pivotal 18 months ahead. Its annual operating cost — measured as a percentage of the EF’s treasury — and the number…
Good Morning, Asia. Here’s what’s making news in the markets: Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during U.S. hours and an overview of market moves and analysis. For a detailed overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas. Macro Events and Vitalik’s Bold Plan to 10x Ethereum Layer 1…
What is a call option, anyway? A call option gives the buyer the right but not the obligation to purchase an asset (in this case, Bitcoin) at a predetermined price before a specific date. If the market price rises above that strike price, the option becomes profitable, or “in the money.” If it doesn’t, the…
Circle priced its initial public offering (IPO) on Wednesday at $31 per share, above the expected range of $24 to $26. The company sold around 34 million shares in the offering for a valuation of $1.1 billion. Bloomberg pegs the total amount raised in the IPO at $6.9 billion. Circle initially planned to offer just…
Stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group, Inc. has again boosted its initial public offering to $1.05 billion, pricing its shares above its previous marketed range. The USDC (USDC) stablecoin manager said on June 4 that it will now to offer 34 million shares at a price of $31 each when it debuts on the New York…
A suspect allegedly behind recent high-profile crypto kidnappings in France has been arrested in Morocco, according to Maghreb Arab Press, a government-run press agency. At the request of French authorities, a joint operation of Morocco’s National Judicial Police Brigade (BNPJ) and the General Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (DGST) took the 24-year-old French-Moroccan suspect into custody,…
JPMorgan, the largest bank in the United States by assets, plans to offer trading and wealth-management clients the option of using crypto-linked assets as collateral for loans, according to a June 4 report from Bloomberg. The bank is set to allow financing against crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in some weeks. JPMorgan will begin with BlackRock’s…
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) plans to let trading and wealth-management clients use certain crypto-linked assets, including spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), as collateral for loans. Starting in the coming weeks, the bank will offer financing backed by shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing people familiar. For some clients, JPMorgan will also…
Leadership on the US House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) seemed like they were not going to reach common ground on how to regulate digital assets amid President Donald Trump’s potential conflicts of interest with the industry. In a June 4 hearing, committee ranking member Maxine Waters reiterated concerns that, without clarification within the bill, Trump…