From theblock by James Hunt
I hope you had a good weekend, folks. In today's newsletter, Bernstein ushers in the crypto bull market amid a Donald Trump-fueled price rally, MicroStrategy acquires another $2 billion worth of bitcoin, FTX files a $1.8 billion lawsuit against Binance and CZ plus more.
Meanwhile, OpenEden's biz dev contractor was the founder of Braq — a community that's still wondering where its NFTs went.
Let's get started.
'Welcome to the crypto bull market — buy everything you can'
With bitcoin continuing to break new all-time highs above $80,000 following Donald Trump's election victory last week, analysts at research and brokerage firm Bernstein urged investors to add exposure to the crypto industry "as soon as possible."
- "Don't fight this," the analysts led by Gautam Chhugani told clients in an explosively bullish note on Monday. "Welcome to the crypto bull market — buy everything you can."
- Chhugani said any investors that had refrained from crypto exposure due to regulatory concerns should "invert their mental model" after the U.S. election results, pointing to expectations of a crypto-friendly regulatory environment under Trump, starting with a new SEC Chair.
- Previously skeptical of the industry, Trump laid out a variety of pro-crypto policies during the campaign, including establishing a national bitcoin stockpile and a promise to "end the war on crypto regulation."
- For institutions, the analysts identified spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, pure-play and AI-focused public bitcoin miners, firms with corporate bitcoin treasuries and crypto exchanges as avenues for exposure.
- However, for investors able to buy cryptocurrencies directly, Bernstein recommended a basket of digital assets, including BTC, ETH, SOL, OP, ARB, POL, UNI, AAVE and LINK.
- "We remain confident in our $200,000 bitcoin price target by 2025 end. Even at $81K/bitcoin (+ 87% YTD), we believe risk-reward is favorable over next 12 months," Chhugani said.
- Earlier on Monday, Greg Cipolaro, the global head of research at bitcoin financial services firm NYDIG, also said there is no longer any excuse for investors to shirk exposure to bitcoin following Trump's victory.
MicroStrategy acquires another 27,200 BTC for more than $2 billion
Business intelligence firm and the largest corporate bitcoin holder, MicroStrategy, has acquired another 27,200 BTC for $2.03 billion at an average price of $74,463 per coin.
- The purchases, conducted between Oct. 31, 2024, and Nov. 10, 2024, with proceeds from the issuance and sale of shares, bring MicroStrategy's aggregate holdings to 279,420 BTC, purchased at an average price of $42,692 each, totaling around $11.9 billion.
- MicroStrategy's latest acquisition follows a revenue miss in the third quarter, with company sales of $116 million short of a consensus estimate by roughly 5%.
- Last week, JPMorgan analysts predicted that — in addition to benefiting from Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election — bitcoin is slated to get an additional boost from MicroStrategy's plan, which includes raising $42 billion for bitcoin acquisitions over the next few years.
FTX files $1.8 billion lawsuit against Binance and CZ
The FTX bankruptcy estate filed a $1.76 billion lawsuit against Binance and its former CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao on Sunday, alleging the money was fraudulently transferred in a 2021 share buyback deal.
- The filing claims FTX's repurchase of Binance's stake in the defunct crypto exchange was funded by its already insolvent trading arm, Alameda Research, using $1 billion in FTX depositor funds.
- FTX further accused Zhao of issuing a series of "false, misleading and fraudulent" social media posts in 2022, triggering massive withdrawals that contributed to FTX's collapse.
- Binance dismissed the lawsuit as "meritless," stating, "We will vigorously defend ourselves."
- Meanwhile, Alameda Research also filed a lawsuit against Waves founder Aleksandr Ivanov and connected entities on Sunday in an attempt to claw back at least $90 million.
Delta Prime suffers second exploit in two months, bringing losses above $10 million
DeFi lending platform Delta Prime has suffered a second exploit in two months, with an attacker draining an estimated $5 million in crypto from its Avalanche and Arbitrum implementations via a smart contract bug.
- An unidentified hacker exploited a "code logic error" that allowed them to drain funds from Delta Prime's "claimRewards" contract used to pay out tokens to platform users, crypto security firm Fuzzland told The Block.
- This latest attack brings Delta Prime’s total losses to over $10 million, following a previous $6 million exploit of its Arbitrum deployment in September due to a stolen admin key.
- Delta Prime has paused the protocol on both chains to contain the damage, with its TVL dropping from $70 million pre-September hack to around $32 million as things stand.
A crypto user sent $25 million to the wrong address and now their tokens might be lost forever
A crypto user mistakenly sent $25 million in Renzo restaked ether tokens to an inaccessible Safe Module smart contract address rather than their regular Safe Wallet address, potentially locking the funds permanently.
- "To all skilled hackers and white hats out there: I’ve lost a significant sum of funds in a contract and urgently need help recovering it," X user @qklpjeth wrote on the social media platform. "If you can successfully retrieve the funds, I’ll immediately offer a 10% reward, which is approximately $2.5 million at the current price."
- However, recovery is only possible if the Renzo team upgrades the contract, adding a function to rescue the funds, according to DeFiLlama founder 0xngmi.
In the next 24 hours
- U.S. FOMC members Thomas Barkin, Neel Kashkari and Patrick Harker are due to speak at 10:15 a.m., 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. ET, respectively, on Tuesday.
- Devcon kicks off in Bangkok, Thailand. The WOW Summit concludes.
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