Word on the Street: Fidelity offers Bitcoin ETN to US investors

Fidelity offers access to Bitcoin ETN on Swedish exchange (med-low impact)

Fidelity Investments, which has some $2.4 trillion assets under management, has begun offering its customers the ability to buy Bitcoin Exchange Traded Notes (ETN) offered by XBT Provider on the Nordic Nasdaq, based in Sweden’s Stockholm.

This means the ETN, listed as CXBTF on Fidelity, can now be bought by US residents in USD whereas before it was restricted to Euro or Swedish Krona. XBT Provider is part of CoinShares Holdings and offers bitcoin and ethereum exchange traded products. Although ETNs trade in the almost exact same way as an ETF, they differ in that ETNs are more like bonds where the underlying is secured.

“Bitcoin is purchased for money received through the sale of certificates which ensures that the certificates are hedged and structured to follow the price of bitcoin. The certificates are guaranteed by Global Advisors (Jersey) Limited,” they say on their website. XBT Provider also has ether ETNs.

Surprisingly, for such an affluent and efficient economy, the Swedes’ interest in bitcoin has been on a steady uptrend over the years.

Cboe boss still bullish on ETF (low impact)

Chris Concannon, the Cboe’s chief operating officer has said he still remains optimistic about the chances of the company’s ETF proposal succeeding. He did point out that the main obstacle lies in the fact that it will be the first ever ETF based on a futures contract which poses new questions for the SEC. The Cboe futures contract trades under the ticker XBT.

However, not everyone is enthused about the idea of an ETF and bitcoin evangelist and technologist Andreas Antonopoulos let his feelings be known in a comment published this week:

“An ETF is a multibillion-dollar ‘not-your-keys-not-your-Bitcoin’ vehicle, so that’s why I’m against it and I wouldn’t buy any,” – Andreas Antonopoulos

Binance to open fiat to crypto exchange (low impact)

Binance LCX, a joint venture between Binance and LCX,  announced on Thursday the launch of a fiat-to-crypto exchange in Liechtenstein. The Binance team will provide and maintain the technology platform, while Binance LCX manages customer support, legal requirements, due diligence, KYC, AML and government communication. Binance LCX plans to build up a team of 10-15 people for its Liechtenstein office and will immediately start the hiring process.

The exchange will offer trading between Swiss Francs (CHF) and Euros (EUR) against major cryptocurrencies pairs, and add more trading pairs overtime subject to regulatory approval.

Nvidia’s crypto revenue plummets 70% in Q2 (low impact)

The graphics card giant and Wall St darling saw its share price drop 5% on its Q2 earnings announcement on Thursday despite it beating analysts expectations – $3.12b versus $3.1b. Revenue from cryptocurrency-related mining products was expected to be $100m but instead came in just around $17m and the company said it expected it to decline going forward.

Pantera Capital raises $71m for third crypto fund (low impact)

Blockchain investment company Pantera Capital has launched its third crypto fund with over $71m so far committed.

The new investment scheme, called Venture Fund III, started its first offering on July 31 and has raised $71.44 million from 90 investors. It’s unclear how much more, if any, Pantera is seeking to raise for the fund. A report from TechCrunch said on Thursday that the firm, whose chief investment officer is Augur creator Joey Krug, could be targeting as much as $175 million in total.

"[Bitcoin] It is rat poison; it’s just the banks and the credit card companies are the rats." – Dan Morehead, CEO Pantera Capital, investor conference call

Pantera, announced the Venture Fund III has already made its first blockchain bet, investing in Bakkt, the cryptocurrency trading platform launched early this month by ICE, which it helped in the development of the platform. Pantera has recorded a 10,000 percent return over the last five years.

Buying BTC on Square app now available in 50 states (low impact)

Square, the digital payment provider owned by Twitter CEO and outspoken bitcoin bull Jack Dorsey has rolled out the buying and trading of BTC to customers across 50 US states. Square (SQ) is listed on the Nasdaq and its share price has more than doubled since the start of the year.

Bitmain "could have lost $700m in Q2" – pre-IPO (Low impact)

China’s crypto-mining behemoth Bitmain, which is filling for an initial public offering (IPO) potentially at $18 billion this September, is lumbered with surplus inventory and bleeding money according to Blockstream Chief Strategic Officer Samson Mow.

"Why is Bitmain raising capital so fast & only showing Q1 results to pre-IPO investors? We’re well into Q3 now. The reason is Q2 was a disaster. Bitmain is sitting on a massive $1.24 billion USD in inventory & S9 prices dropped by ~85%! Q2 losses range in the $600-700 millions."     – Samson Mow, Blockstream

Blockstream is a technology company co-founded by bitcoin developers Adam Back, Gregory Maxwell, Pieter Wuille and others to fund the development of Bitcoin Core, the main client for the network.

If Bitmain does IPO at current levels with a market capitalization around $40 to $50 billion, it will be one of the largest IPOs in the history of the Hong Kong markets.

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No news was good news in a week that saw around $10b wiped off the value of the overall crypto market capitalization.