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The crypto protocol that made the city of Miami over $21 million is coming to New York City.

CityCoins has announced that NYCCoin will be the next token to launch, with mining slated to begin Wednesday at 3 p.m. EST. It will be the second CityCoin to launch after MiamiCoin. 

The CityCoins are programmable tokens aimed at bringing an additional revenue stream to local governments through residents’ mining of the tokens. Those who run the software earn a percentage of the coins they mint.

Users received 70% and 30% returned to the municipality in a city wallet in the form of STX tokens that can be converted to dollars should the city choose to access the wallet and convert. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is bullish on the project, estimating MiamiCoin could generate the city $60 million over the course of the year. It’s already generated $21.3 million since its launch in August, according to CityCoins.

New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams indicated his interest in the project in an interview with Bloomberg last week. He told the outlet he’s “going to look in the direction to carry that out,” in New York.

CityCoins said that so far, all conversations with Adams’ camp have taken place in the public forum on Twitter. The way CityCoins sees it, his comments signaled to the community that the project is welcome in the city, and the CityCoins responded by activating the possibility of mining an NYC token. It’s on New Yorkers to do the rest.

No official collaboration between the project and the city of New York has taken place, but the city can access its funds in its city wallet. 

Still, Adams has signaled his support post announcement, retweeting CityCoins’ announcement with the message: 

“We’re glad to welcome you to the global home of Web3! We’re counting on tech and innovation to help drive our city forward.”

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Quick Take

• Optimistic rollups (ORUs) have grown significantly in the last three months, with Arbitrum and Optimism leading the market in TVL
• Arbitrum adopted a more aggressive onboarding approach as compared to Optimism, which appears to have paid off in terms of attracting users and liquidity
• Both teams have not addressed how they intend to decentralize governance and sequencer nodes, assuming they have the intent to do so
• While Arbitrum dwarfs Optimism in TVLs and dapps, the number of users and on-chain transactions suggests that they are currently on par in terms of user adoption

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Bitcoin’s rally faded on Tuesday, suggesting that buyers took some profits at around the $68,500 all-time price high.

The cryptocurrency is up about 5% over the past week, compared with a 3% rise in ether over the same period.

Despite a short-term pullback, some analysts are maintaining upward price targets for both BTC and ETH over the next month.

“There is a positive sentiment that often engulfs the crypto markets toward year’s end,” Galina Likhitskaya, vice president at smart contract audit company HashEx, wrote in an email to CoinDesk. Likhitskaya has a price target around $80,000 for BTC by the end of the year, and a $5,500 target for ETH during the same period. ETH is currently at $4,777.

“Analysts are suggesting $75,000 as a target on the upside, but if the price takes a turn downwards the price could fall to the 50-day moving average at around $56,000,” Jonas Luethy, a trader at the U.K.-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock, wrote in an email to CoinDesk.

Latest prices

• Bitcoin (BTC): $67,375, +1.93%
• Ether (ETH): $4,777, +0.32%
• S&P 500: $4,685, -0.35%
• Gold: $1,832, +0.42%
• 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.43%

Trading BTC relative to ETH

“Bitcoin is oversold versus ether, and likely to see short-term outperformance as cryptocurrencies digest their gains in a consolidation phase,” Katie Stockton, managing partner at Fairlead Strategies, wrote in a research report.

“The uptick to multi-day highs in BTC/ETH likely signals a switch to better relative outperformance in bitcoin to ethereum, but more is needed to confirm this move,” Mark Newton, head of technical strategy at FundStrat wrote in a research report.

Overall, analysts agree that BTC’s breakout to an all-time high could signal the start of a final leg higher this quarter. However, cryptocurrencies could see a “more pronounced consolidation into next year,” Newton wrote.

Decline in CME bitcoin futures open interest

The number of open contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is down 32% from its Oct. 25 peak, which could indicate reduced institutional presence in the bitcoin futures market at the moment, according to Arcane Research.

The surge in bitcoin futures open interest, or total number of outstanding derivative contracts, over the past month coincided with the launch of the first bitcoin futures-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) introduced by ProShares, trading under the ticker BITO. “Now, the open interest has declined substantially, particularly when subtracting the BITO contribution,” Arcane wrote in a research report.

Some analysts expect recent market hype surrounding ETFs to fade, at least until a spot bitcoin ETF is approved sometime next year.

So far, BITO has lagged behind BTC’s price rally since inception. The ETF launch contributed to bitcoin’s previous all-time price high around $66,900 on Oct. 20.

Crypto fund flows rise

Digital asset products saw inflows totaling $174 million last week, bringing year-to-date (YTD) inflows to $8.9 billion. This is a significant increase from the $6.7 billion pumped into digital assets in 2020.

Total assets under management (AUM) have also reached an all-time high of $80 billion, with bitcoin and ether leading the chart with roughly $53 billion and $20 billion, respectively.

Inflows in bitcoin-focused funds totaled $95 million last week, with a year-to-date record of $6.4 billion invested in the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Meanwhile, funds focused on ether saw inflows of $31 million last week.

Altcoin roundup

• Neon Labs raises $40 million to bring EVM functionality to Solana: Neon Labs announced a $40 million fundraising round led by Jump Capital with participation from IDEO CoLab Ventures, Solana Capital, Three Arrows Capital and others, CoinDesk’s Andrew Thurman reported. Neon Labs is the developer of Neon, a software environment on Solana that lets developers build applications using Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and allows them to write smart contracts in familiar coding languages and use tools like wallet interface MetaMask. The project aims to bring Ethereum’s computation engine to Solana.
• Ripple to launch liquidity service for six cryptocurrencies: Fintech firm Ripple will launch a product called the “Ripple Liquidity Hub” to give business customers access to the BTC, ETH, LTC, ETC and BCH cryptocurrencies and Ripple’s native coin XRP, CoinDesk’s Ian Allison reported. The Ripple Liquidity Hub will use smart order routing to find digital assets at the best prices, with Coinme joining as the first partner. Down the road, Ripple plans to add features such as support for staking and yield-generating functions as well as getting liquidity from decentralized exchanges, RippleNet General Manager Asheesh Birla said.
• Solana’s growth strategy is going mobile: Top brass at Solana Labs, which builds on the proof-of-stake ecosystem, waxed bullish on mobile wallet integrations in the past week, with Head of Growth Matty Tay saying Phantom’s yet-to-launch mobile wallet could “open the floodgates” to millions of new users, CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson reported. Mobile wallets wouldn’t be completely new for Solana. A number of crypto exchanges already let users send, stake and store SOL from their phones. Solana will also become wallet analysis company Nansen’s first non-Ethereum Virtual Machine chain, it was announced Tuesday. The software company will add coverage for Solana in Q1 2022, project leads said at the Solana conference in Lisbon.

Relevant news

• Apple CEO Tim Cook Reveals He Owns Crypto but Has No Plans to Buy It for the Company
• Bank of England and UK Treasury to Assess Case for a CBDC Next Year
• Riot Blockchain, Hive Outperform Crypto Miners as Bitcoin, Ether Rally
• CityCoin’s Plan for NYCCoin Is Welcomed by Mayor-Elect Adams

Other markets

Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day higher.

Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):

• Litecoin (LTC): +20%
• Ethereum Classic (ETC): +12%
• The Graph (GRT): +12%

Notable losers:

• Polkadot (DOT): -4%
• Polygon (MATIC): -4%
• Algorand (ALGO): -2%

Austria’s Federal Ministry of Finance hopes to boost confidence in cryptocurrencies by taxing them like mainstream stock and bond investments, according to a Bloomberg story.

• Starting next March, Austria will apply a 27.5% capital gains levy on digital currencies, including bitcoin and ether.
• The initiative will be part of a nationwide tax overhaul.
• Austria called its model the first of its kind and said streamlining conditions between asset classes would be fairer for investors.
• “There is still an imbalance when it comes to the regulation of cryptocurrencies compared to traditional shares and bonds,” Finance Minister Gernot Blümel said in an email. “We are taking a step in the direction of equal treatment, to reduce mistrust and prejudice toward new technologies. At the same time, we are creating more fairness for investors as well as uniform market conditions.”

Read more: House Sends Infrastructure Bill With Crypto Tax Provision to US President

UPDATE (Nov. 10, 11:41 UTC) Replaces quote from Bloomberg in last bullet with emailed comment from finance minister.

Quick Take

• This research piece contains 29 charts relating to the latest developments in the crypto space — this includes DeFi, stablecoins, ETFs, exchange tokens, etc.
• Crypto ETFs have been launching recently in both the US and Canada.
• DeFi topics like stablecoins and fixed rate protocols are gaining excitement as protocols continue to develop.

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Coinbase’s earnings for the third quarter of the year reflect a cooler period in the crypto market after a strong spring, with trading volumes, revenue and the number of monthly transacting users all declining.

The publicly traded exchange company said net revenue came in at $1.31 billion for the period, down from Q2’s $2.27 billion. Per the earnings report, adjusted EBITDA was $618 million compared to Q2’s $1.15 billion.

Trading volume fell from $462 billion to $327 billion, with the bulk of the volume coming from the institutional segment. The share of volume and transaction revenue from non-BTC and ETH digital assets inched upward during the period. Assets held on its platform rose from $180 billion to $255 billion, according to Coinbase. 

Source: Coinbase Q3 investor letter

Coinbase also reported that the number of monthly transacting users on its platform was 7.4 million for the quarter, down from Q2’s 8.8 million. The exchange said that the number of verified users on the platform grew to 73 million in Q3. 

In its investor letter, Coinbase contended that it outperformed a market that saw an overall decline in activity compared to the second quarter of the year, but that this trend is shifting upward as the end of 2021 approaches.

“While we entered Q3 with softer crypto market conditions, driven by low volatility and declining crypto asset prices, market conditions improved meaningfully later in the quarter which we have continued to see into early Q4,” the firm said. “This backdrop led to global crypto spot trading volumes declining 37% in Q3 as compared to Q2, however, Coinbase outperformed the market with total trading volumes of $327 billion, a 29% decline in the same period. We have consistently indicated that volatility is a key factor influencing our transaction revenue. Q3 illustrates this point.”

“We believe that retail MTUs and total trading volume will be higher in Q4 as compared to Q3,” Coinbase added. 

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Shares of Coinbase (COIN) were falling more than 14% after-hours on Tuesday after the crypto exchange reported that its third-quarter revenue came in at just $1.24 billion, versus consensus analyst estimates of $1.61 billion, according to FactSet.

• Coinbase posted $1.1 billion in transaction revenue in the third quarter, down from about $1.9 billion in the second quarter, the company said.
• Q3 trading volume was $327 billion, down from $462 billion in Q2.
• Coinbase had 7.4 million monthly transacting users (MTUs) in Q3, down from 8.8 million in Q2, but up from 2.1 million in the year-ago quarter.
• As for its outlook, Coinbase said that “while we entered Q3 with softer crypto market conditions, driven by low volatility and declining crypto asset prices, market conditions improved meaningfully later in the quarter which we have continued to see into early Q4.”
• The company had previously warned that its number of MTUs and trading volume would be lower in the third quarter than the second quarter.
• Subscription and services revenue grew 41% quarter-over-quarter to $145 million in Q3, up from about $103 million in Q2.
• Shares of Coinbase were down more than 14% in after-hours trading on Tuesday following the release of the results.

Read more: Coinbase Proposes US Create New Regulator to Oversee Crypto

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Quick Take

• The FATF’s virtual asset guidance has been finalized.
• The final document includes clarifications to its VASP definition, especially as it relates to decentralized finance entities.
• While the software itself is off the hook, the developers behind decentralized protocols are not.

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While many musicians have used non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to connect with their fanbases, MODA DAO is using them as a governance tool for artists and their managers to control royalty contracts.

The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is pairing its NFT music streaming platform with its governance token, $MODA, which is set for release on multiple blockchains, the company announced Tuesday.

The DAO said it will release a portion of its token supply on Ethereum, Polygon, Fantom, and Near blockchains on Nov. 10.

While artists have released their music and concert tickets as NFTs before, governance through NFTs in the industry remains uncharted territory. The concept has caught the attention of electronic music producer and performer Deadmau5, who is backing the project as an early token holder.

“I see the Web3 ecosystem growing alongside streaming services, and eventually becoming more significant to the artists,” Deadmau5 told CoinDesk in a statement. “This new [MODA DAO] world is creating new ways for artists to take ownership of their music, but it will take a while to scare the Spotify and Apple Musics of the world.”

Owners of the $MODA token are given access to on-chain music registration in the DAO’s decentralized music economy. MODA DAO is targeting musicians and their managers as token holders, giving them a say in the royalties they receive for music released on the platform.

Revenue earned from songs published on the DAO’s platform is split three ways between the artists, the rewards pool and a token buy-back program. MODA DAO told CoinDesk that it’s also working toward creating a DeFi-esque lending program where artists can stake their NFTs to earn additional rewards.

MODA DAO also gives tokenholders access to in-house blockchain products such as its new “audio fingerprinting” technology, which allows artists to mint and sell raw audio files of songs as NFTs before they’ve been approved to be published on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.

Deadmau5 has been involved in numerous NFT related projects dating to 2020, including a recent collaboration with Gregory Siff that merged physical and digital artwork at a music festival in November.

MODA DAO raised $5 million in a private token sale in October and says it currently manages over 10 billion music streams per month.

The Bank of France has made public some of the results of its experiments with central bank digital currency.

A report published Monday focused on its wholesale CBDC efforts, the French central bank said that the trials focused on the trade and settlement of financial assets that are represented on a distributed ledger. The tests began in 2020, with initial details becoming public at the start of this year. 

“These experiments with a wholesale CBDC were carried out in record time, in less than a year, and show how interested market participants are in the subject, as well as their expectations regarding public authorities,” Nathalie Aufauvre, Director General of Financial Stability and Operations, said in a statement. “With the emergence of financial assets in tokenised form, we have shown that a CBDC, combined with the potential of new technologies, can ensure the safe settlement of transactions in these assets and thereby contribute to the secure development of these innovations.”

As might be expected, the Bank of France isn’t pushing forward with a concrete CBDC launch plan. Rather, it wants to pursue additional experiments using the technology. 

“The experiments raised some important questions that need to be examined further,” the central bank said.

The developments come as an array of central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, have pursued R&D projects focused on digital currency. 

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.