🦎🚀 Could you spare some more Manta? 😔

Friday, January 19, 2024

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Have a wonderful weekend, Geckos!

In today's news:

Manta farmers are not too happy 😡
Blackrock crosses the 8-figure mark 🏁

Read on!

24h Hot Searches Worldwide 🔥

Manta Network (+7.1%)
Ondo (+83.5%)
Beldex (-0.5%)
Firo (-4.3%)
Pyth Network (-5.6%)
Open Campus (-7.5%)
Xai (-13.4%)

2023 Annual Crypto Industry Report

Dive into our comprehensive 2023 Crypto Industry Report which covers everything from the crypto market landscape.

Manta farmers are not too happy 😡

Just over a month after the start of their New Paradigm campaign, Manta Network finally launched their native MANTA token yesterday, starting strong at an initial price of $2.32, and is currently trading just below that at $2.20.

Yet, Manta's launch day was not as rosy as it seemed.

Many smaller airdrop farmers were disappointed over the small amount of tokens received.

Several users reported that they only received 7 tokens from bridging and depositing 0.25 ETH, or approximately ~$15.

Besides that, rumors began to circulate about a possible money laundering attempt through Bithumb using the MANTA, as explained below:

2 million MANTA was transferred to the personal wallets of one of Manta's Korean business development associates.
The funds were then deposited into Bithumb, making up more than 75% of the tokens circulating on exchange.
5 minutes after the deposit, the price of MANTA soared to $230.
All 2 million tokens were sold on Bithumb at pproximately 50-100x of the actual price.
The proceeds were then converted to Ether and transferred back to their personal wallet.

While these are merely rumors as of now, it shouldn't take long for Manta Network to dispel them unless they could be true.

Editor's Take:
With the price of ETH currently at $2,462, this airdrop would equate to a 2.4% yield over a 1-month period (which isn't actually too bad, especially since ETH is priced higher than it was at the start of the campaign).

With another revolution around the sun completed, let's see which coins have performed the best in 2023!

Watch now!

Blackrock crosses the 8-figure mark 🏁

Just a week after their launch, Blackrock and Fidelity's spot Bitcoin ETFs have each achieved over $1B in inflows.

One week after its launch, Blackrock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has crossed $1.04B in AUM, or approximately 25,067 BTC.

The Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) also later crossed the $1B mark.

These inflows are not the whole picture, as it is against the backdrop of outflows from Grayscale's Bitcoin ETF (GBTC), which has seen outflows of $579.6M.

Nonetheless, over the course of the week since launch, spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen a total net inflow of 25,877 BTC (~$1.07B).

It's important to note that it is likely that most of the AUM entering the newly launched ETFs are from investors switching out of GBTC, as well as other Bitcoin Futures ETF or foreign ETF products.

However, anecdotal reporting from fund managers indicates that they are fielding interest from first-time buyers of crypto.

According to Bitmex Research, the 11 spot ETFs experienced a net outflow of $131.6M yesterday, with a large outflow of $579.6M from Grayscale.

With GBTC still holding over 581K Bitcoins (~$20B), there are talks that the trust could still see outflows in the coming days.

Join us for a deep dive into Celestia and find out how it takes a modular approach to addressing scalability and decentralization challenges in blockchain systems.

Learn more

In Other News...

Tether snaps up more Bitcoin (BTC), bringing its Bitcoin holdings to $2.8 billion. The stablecoin issuer continues to load up on Bitcoin, purchasing 8.888 BTC worth $379 million at the end of last quarter, bringing its BTC holdings to a total of 66,465.
Crypto exchange WOO X raises $9 million to improve liquidity. Investors include Wintermute, Selini Capital, Time Research, Presto Labs, Pulsar, AlphaLab Capital, Efficient Frontier, Amber and Riverside Hedge.
Chainalysis reported that crypto crime is down 29% in 2023, nearly a third less than in 2022. According to the blockchain analysis firm, illicit revenue in total was down more than 54%.
Ethereum users can now stake an entire validator directly from MetaMask. MetaMask's new offering now eliminates the need for pooling or complex hardware to run an Ethereum validator node but it also takes a 10% cut.
Conflux adds EVM-compatible solution to interact with Bitcoin. This solution will allow the transfer of Bitcoin and inscription-based tokens between the Conflux and Bitcoin networks. A testnet is expected to launch by the end of March, with the mainnet targeted for May.
DeFi Exchange dYdX surpass Ethereum's Uniswap on 24 hour daily trading volume. This milestone follows a strategic migration from Ethereum to Cosmos and the subsequent activation of full trading under the new infrastructure.

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