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Bitcoin looks to regain poise during overnight trading, after it avoided a short-term bullish-to-bearish trend change with the help of a crucial support level.

• The top cryptocurrency by market value is trading near $61,400 at press time, representing a 1.4% gain on the day.
• While prices fell by 4.3% on Tuesday, sellers failed to break the support level near $59,800 and confirm a “head-and-shoulders” breakdown on the four-hour chart.
• Chart analysts consider a head-and-shoulders breakdown as a bearish signal. The pattern often yields an extended sell-off to the downside.
• A potential head-and-shoulders breakdown on the four-hour chart would expose support near $54,000.
• Resistance is seen at $63,700, which was the high on Monday. A higher break could take bitcoin to record highs.

The creator of the world’s most popular digital creators software, Adobe, is angling toward non-fungible tokens.

• A new feature on Adobe Photoshop will allow artists to prove they are the the creators of artwork on NFT marketplaces, according to an Adobe blog post.
• Content Credentials, as the feature is called, can capture identity data as an image is edited on the software, and store it as metadata. The feature is optional, and the company has launched a website where the credential metadata of images can be verified.
• Users can link their Adobe accounts, and Content Credentials, with social media profiles or crypto wallets. If they then sell their art as NFTs, the marketplaces will be able to show a digital certificate based on the Adobe-verified credentials. The credentials will also be linked on Behance, Adobe’s online portfolio site.
• Adobe has partnered with NFT marketplaces KnownOrigin, OpenSea, Rarible, and SuperRare to display the credentials on their platforms.
• Be the end of the month, Photoshop will have a “prepare as NFT” feature powered by the Inter-Planetary File System, Adobe Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky told Decoder. The feature will be available in preview, as it is not ready yet, Belsky said.
• Adobe is responding to consumer demand, Belsky said. Artists complain that, they even if they mint their art made on Adobe software as NFTs, others can mint imitations of their art and there is no way to prove who is the original creator, he explained.
• The Content Credentials feature is being rolled out to Photoshop users in beta mode.
• The features were announced during of Adobe Max, the company’s annual conference.

A big handful of blockchain companies wrote an open letter Tuesday to Valve, creator of the gaming platform Steam, in a bid to reverse a decision to boot blockchain-based video games from its platform last month.

Fight for the Future, Enjin, and The Blockchain Game Alliance, along with 26 blockchain game companies, are calling on Valve to lift the ban on Web3 technologies including non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

“Games that utilize blockchain technology and web3 token-based technologies like DAOs and NFTs can positively enhance the user experience of games, and create new economic opportunities for users and creators,” the companies said.

Brought to market as a standalone client in 2003, Steam is the largest digital distribution platform for PC games with around 17-24 million concurrent users daily.

A ban from the Steam platform effectively stymies a lucrative venue upon which to market blockchain games to the public.

Last month, Steam banned blockchain-based games from its platform stating its view was items with value, such as NFTs, are not allowed because they possess real-world value, potentially landing the company in regulatory hot water.

“Valve, Web3 games are a fast-moving and exciting category of games that have a place within the Steam ecosystem,” the companies said. “Please consider changing your stance on this issue and permit tokens and, more broadly, the use of blockchain tech on the Steam platform.”

Read more: GameStop Enters the Metaverse With ‘Web3 Gaming’ Job Post

David “Big Papi” Ortiz is the newest ambassador of crypto exchange FTX.

The Major League Baseball (MLB) legend, who hit over 500 home runs and brought home three World Series titles to the Boston Red Sox, has agreed to a multiyear deal with the exchange.

As part of the pact, Big Papi will be compensated in cryptocurrency through the FTX app and release multiple non-fungible token (NFT) collections, according to a press release.

FTX now has a strong lineup of athlete ambassadors, with Ortiz rounding out America’s professional sports trifecta with football’s Tom Brady and basketball’s Stephen Curry. TV commercials referencing the Ortiz deal (and mentioning Brady and Curry) began running on Tuesday night during the first game of the 2021 World Series.

Read more: NBA Star Steph Curry Joins Tom Brady as FTX Ambassador

FTX will also be serving as a title sponsor for the David Ortiz Celebrity Golf Classic, and contribute donations to his charity, the David Ortiz’s Children’s Fund.

The crypto exchange led by CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is growing familiar with the MLB, with its current sponsorships including patches of its logo on the league’s umpire uniforms and “Moonblasts,” where the exchange has donated $10,000 for every postseason home run hit over 425 feet.

“David is an MLB legend, known for hitting home runs to the moon and his incredible personality,” Bankman-Fried said in a press release. “Most importantly, he is dedicated and passionate about helping others, so when he wanted to get into crypto, we were incredibly excited to help him start his journey. Now the world knows that Big Papi is in.”

Adobe is introducing a Photoshop feature that allows users to prepare images as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which will include content credentials that marketplaces like OpenSea can display on their websites for each asset. 

Adobe chief product officer Scott Belsky revealed the so-called “prepare as NFT” option during a conversation with The Verge’s Nilay Patel, via the Decoder podcast. The tool will allow people to see attribution for the creator of the NFT, in addition to who minted it, Belsky told Patel. Adobe will use an open-source method of cryptographically signing the image with the creator’s identity, he added.

The new feature is available today in the Photoshop desktop app as a public beta, Andy Parsons, the director of the Content Authenticity Initiative at Adobe, told The Block in an email. 

“Our goals with NFTs at this stage are simple: How do we help creatives get credit for their work, and how do we help folks who are already creating NFTs showcase their work, no matter where they mint it?” Parsons said. “This gives collectors and marketplaces valuable information about the true creator of a work of art.”

The new NFT option in Photoshop will allow creators to link their social media and wallet information to the image.

“By adding your social media and wallet addresses to your content credentials you can further assure consumers that you are indeed the creator of your content,” Adobe said in its press release. “A crypto address is also useful if someone wishes to mint their work as crypto art.” 

OpenSea confirmed to The Block that it will be displaying this new content credential on its platform. It shows a screenshot of how those content credentials look in a blog post, which includes a link to the crypto wallet associated with whoever created the image. A blue “match” button will appear if that wallet address matches the one that minted the image.

“This is going to be amazing for creators, collectors and buyers to have an additional layer of features that increase the transparency even further,” Ryan Foutty, OpenSea’s vice president of business development, told The Block in an interview.

Adobe confirmed in a press release that it is also partnering with the marketplaces KnownOrigin, Rarible and SuperRare so that potential buyers can see whether the creator and minter of the NFT match. 

“While using Adobe Photoshop, creators can use content credentials to capture edits and identity information as well as attach attribution rights directly to an image, which can be exported as an NFT,” OpenSea told The Block in an email. This information will serve as metadata attached to the NFT, the startup said.

Potential NFT buyers can verify these credentials by uploading the image using a dedicated tool from the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), a project originally launched by Adobe, Twitter and The New York Times. Those content credentials will also show up when viewing NFTs through artists’ Behance portfolios, with links to the marketplace for potential buyers. 

Adobe is rolling out this feature in response to demand for identifying the original creator of the content displayed with an NFT, since it’s so easy to copy any image and then mint it on the blockchain.

Belsky told Patel that the cryptographic signature “points to an IPFS (InterPlanetary File System)-powered system that shows you the attribution data, and that the tool also uses decentralized storage. 

© 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.

99Pay, the digital wallet of Brazilian ride-hailing company 99, will enable the purchase and sale of bitcoin on its platform, the company announced on Tuesday.

Users of 99Pay will be able to execute commission-free transactions with a minimum purchase amount of 10 Brazilian reais and a maximum of 10,000 reais — equivalent to 1,800 U.S. dollars — starting Nov. 3.

99Pay, part of the Chinese vehicle-for-hire company DiDi, said that the platform will deliver bitcoin cashback promotions as well.

The initiative comes amid rapidly increasing interest in cryptocurrency among Brazilians and demand for crypto services. According to data published by the country’s Central Bank (BCB) in October, Brazilians have already acquired $4.27 billion so far in 2021. On the legislative front, Brazil’s congress plans to discuss a bill that would regulate companies operating in the cryptocurrency sector.

Brazil’s 99 is a ride-hailing, food delivery and financial services company founded in 2012. It was acquired by DiDi Chuxing, the Chinese equivalent of Uber, in a $1 billion transaction in 2018. The 99Pay platform has 20 million active users, according to the company.

99 launched its digital wallet in July 2020 within its app. The company launched a 99Pay’s stand-alone app last week.

Users will not be able to use bitcoins to pay for trips on 99, since crypto will first have to be switched to fiat, 99Pay’s Director, Maurício Orsolini Filho, told CoinDesk.

Orsolini Filho added that the company implemented the bitcoin trading feature following research conducted at the company’s request that showed potentially strong demand for the service. According to the data, 81% of Brazilian digital banks’ users already know or have heard of cryptocurrencies, while another 54% do not invest in digital assets but have shown interest in entering that market.

In 2020, DiDi told CoinDesk it was forming a task force to design and run a trial of China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) on its transportation platform.

International police including the FBI-led Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement (JCODE) and Europol have busted a group of 150 alleged darknet drug traffickers, seizing $4.9 million in cryptocurrencies.

The operation dubbed “Operation Dark HunTor” cracked down on criminals who were involved in the sale of tens of thousands of illicit goods and services across Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S.

The U.S.-Italian operations seized €3.6 million (US$4.17 million) in cryptocurrencies, while police seized approximately $1 million in drug proceeds that included $700,000 in cryptocurrency.

Overall, Operation Dark HunTor resulted in the seizure of over $31.6 million in both cash and virtual currencies, approximately 234 kilograms of drugs worldwide and 45 firearms.

The U.S. Department of Justice reports darknet vendor accounts were linked to individuals selling illicit goods on active marketplaces, as well as inactive darknet marketplaces such as Dream, WallStreet, White House, DeepSea and Dark Market.

“Criminal darknet markets exist so drug dealers can profit at the expense of others’ safety. The FBI is committed to working with our JCODE and Europol law enforcement partners to disrupt those markets and the borderless, worldwide trade in illicit drugs they enable,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray in a statement.

Read more: Europol Coordinates Arrest of Ransomware Gang in Ukraine, Seizing $1.3M in Crypto

Exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuer Direxion wants to short the price of a bitcoin futures contract.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday, the Direxion Bitcoin Strategy Bear ETF will maintain short exposure to bitcoin futures contracts issued by the CME exchange. The product will not directly invest in bitcoin.

In addition, the ETF might invest in other bitcoin futures ETFs or money market funds, deposit accounts or short-term debt instruments.

“The Fund will generally maintain its short exposure to Bitcoin Futures during periods in which the value of bitcoin is flat or declining as well as during periods in which the value of bitcoin is rising,” the filing said.

This is Direxion’s first bitcoin ETF filing in three years, after the SEC rejected past efforts.

Direxion isn’t the only issuer hoping to put a creative spin on bitcoin futures ETFs. Tuesday, Valkyrie investments filed to offer an ever-so-slightly leveraged bitcoin futures ETF. It was one of two firms to launch the first bitcoin futures ETF products last week.

While the SEC has proven receptive to a narrow class of bitcoin ETFs – after years of stonewalling – it has not yet weighed in on these more ambitious follow-ups. The agency has 75 days to respond before Direxion’s ETF would automatically take effect.

Leveraged funds on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) raised their bets against bitcoin rising to a record high in the week ended Oct. 19, possibly to profit from the widening gap between futures and spot markets prices.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Commitments of Traders report released on Friday showed leveraged funds held a net short position of 31,000 contracts in the seven days to Oct. 19, marking an increase of 6,000 from the previous week.

Record shorts by leverage funds does not necessarily mean these traders had a bearish bias. They may have raised short positions in the futures market and simultaneously bought the cryptocurrency in the spot market, booking the so-called carry trade.

The strategy is initiated when futures trade at a notable premium to the spot price and trades can profit from an eventual convergence of prices in the two markets.

The annualized premium in the front-month bitcoin futures contracts surged from 1% to 20% in the run-up to ProShares’ Bitcoin Strategy ETF launch on Oct. 18, and was last seen at 13%. The three-month rolling premium also rose from 3% to 16% before tapering to 11.7%.

ProShares’ ETF, which invests in the CME-listed bitcoin futures contracts, made a strong debut last Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange, while Valkyrie’s futures-based ETF went live on Friday.

Earlier this month, analysts had warned of an uptick in futures premium and renewed interest in cash and carry arbitrage.

Also read: Bitcoin Futures ETFs May Boost Cash and Carry Yields

After months of waiting, the Bank of Spain has issued instructions on how to register with the central bank to offer crypto-related services in the country.

• Institutions are instructed to apply through an electronic registry, after which the central bank will take up to three months to consider the application.
• The process was first announced by Spain’s central bank in June, with a promise that instructions on how to proceed would be issued in due course. Those instructions have now arrived.
• Much of the uncertainty related to whether existing mainstream financial institutions, such as banks, would have to register since they are already regulated entities.
• The Bank of Spain has now made it clear that they do: “The obligation to register in this registry applies to all natural or legal persons who are in any of the above cases and provide virtual currency exchange services for fiduciary currency and custody of electronic purses, regardless of whether they are also registered in other administrative records in the Bank of Spain or in other competent authorities,” it said in a statement.

Read more: EU to Designate Bank of Spain, Securities Regulator for Crypto Oversight: Report