Crypto Tidbits: Goldman Stablecoin, Dave Portnoy Wants Bitcoin, DeFi Boom

Another week, another round of Crypto Tidbits.

It’s been a volatile week for the price of Bitcoin and other top digital assets. After our last Crypto Tidbits, the price of the leading cryptocurrency rallied as high as $12,200, then plunged around $1,700 in the span of five minutes in the worst crash since March 13th. Ethereum fell even further, plunging approximately $90 to $325. The move liquidated around $1 billion worth of leveraged positions across crypto futures markets, according to data provider ByBt.

Since the flash crash, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the rest of the crypto gaggle have bounced between local highs and lows. The chart below shows the volatility in the price of BTC well.

Right now, analysts are cautious in the short-term as BTC seems primed to lose the support of $11,500. Due to historical precedent, analysts have said that $11,500 is the level that Bitcoin bulls must surmount to cement the macro uptrend that began to form last week.

Chart of BTC's price action over the past week or so from TradingView.com

As Bitcoin and Ethereum have bounced back and forth, certain altcoins have performed extremely well.

Chainlink moved past $10 for the first time ever this week, rallying higher as buyers rushed in. Analysts see upside for the cryptocurrency as it prints strong technical signals.

A cryptocurrency that has also been doing well is Band Protocol (BAND), a competitor to Chainlink. The asset gained 50% in the span of five minutes because Coinbase Pro announced its intentions to list the altcoin.

Investors remain bullish on the cryptocurrency markets despite the overall weakness. Speaking to CNBC, Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz said that BTC is on track to hit $20,000 this year. He referenced the ongoing shift in interest from stocks to hard assets like gold and Bitcoin spurred by money printing:

“A lot of that retail interest shifted to the story stocks, to the tech stocks, because they were just more fun … Yesterday you saw a lot of money shift back over to gold and bitcoin. There’s an adoption game in bitcoin that you don’t have in gold. But I like them both.”

Related Reading: Crypto Tidbits: Bitcoin Explodes Past $11k, Ethereum 2.0 Nears, Cardano’s Shelley Launches

Crypto Tidbits

• Goldman May Soon Be Working on a Stablecoin: According to an interview with Goldman Sachs’ new head of digital assets, Mathew McDermott, the investment bank may soon be working on its own crypto stablecoin. He told CNBC that the Wall Street giant is “exploring the commercial viability of creating our own fiat digital token.” McDermott also highlighted how the company sees value in blockchain technologies in the long run:

“In the next five to 10 years, you could see a financial system where all assets and liabilities are native to a blockchain, with all transactions natively happening on chain… So what you’re doing today in the physical world, you just do digitally, creating huge efficiencies. And that can be debt issuances, securitization, loan origination; essentially you’ll have a digital financial markets ecosystem, the options are pretty vast.”

• Dave Portnoy Wants in on Bitcoin, But Not Chainlink: Barstool’s Dave Portnoy revealed this week that he wants to buy Bitcoin, calling on the Winklevoss Twins from the Gemini crypto exchange to help. The stock trading personality also stated that he doesn’t think he will buy Chainlink.
• Ethereum DeFi Surmounts $4 Billion Milestone: This week, the value of cryptocurrency locked in Ethereum’s decentralized finance (DeFi) space surmounted the $4 billion milestone. This is up from the $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency locked in DeFi contracts just three months ago. This same metric was also $500 million at the start of 2020. Spencer Noon, the head of DTC Capital, has highlighted four other metrics that also indicate that DeFi is “breaking out in spectacular fashion.”

Chart of the amount of value locked over the past three months (90 days) from DeFi Pulse.

Featured Image from Shutterstock
Price tags: xbtusd, btcusd, btcusdt
Charts from TradingView.com
Crypto Tidbits: Goldman Stablecoin, Dave Portnoy Wants Bitcoin, DeFi Boom