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A New York court said Celsius debtors can begin cashing out altcoins for bitcoin and ether starting on July 1.

Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn approved the move in a June 30 filing.

Plans to begin altcoin conversions to bitcoin and ether began earlier this month but needed court approval. 

Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 13, 2022, revealing that it had up to $10 billion in liabilities. The company paused withdrawals the day before its bankruptcy and has been working with regulators to return funds back to debtors.

© 2023 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.

A new Binance report on institutional crypto sentiment found 63.5% of respondents expressed a positive outlook for the sector in the next 12 months, while 88% held the same view for the next decade.

Perversely, the ‘Institutional Crypto Outlook Survey’ from Binance Research also found that just 26.9% of institutional users believe that more real-world use cases will drive adoption of the sector.

The respondents, it should be noted, are already investing in the industry. The survey was based on responses from 208 of Binance’s institutional clients and VIP users, and ran from March 31 to May 15, 2023. 

Released on Friday, the report’s authors said that 25.3% of respondents said regulatory clarity would stand out as a major driver of crypto adoption. Another big driver, according to respondents, would be more institutional involvement in the form of crypto-friendly banks and other financial institutions entering the space. 

Keeping in crypto

The report further claimed 47.1% of institutional investors maintained their crypto allocation over the past year and that over a third, 35.6%, increased their allocation in the same period. When planning for the future, 50% of investors said they expected to increase their allocation, with just 4.3% stating they would reduce allocation to crypto in the next 12 months.

Of the institutional investors who responded to the survey, 44.7% utilized crypto for intraday strategies, with the next most commonly cited use case, at 23.1%, being for market-making and arbitrage activities. Over half the respondents managed under $25 million in crypto, while 22.6% had a crypto allocation of over $100 million. “Interestingly, for funds with an AUM above $75 million, portfolio diversification surfaced as an additional motivation to invest in cryptocurrencies,” the report stated.

© 2023 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.

Episode 62 of Season 5 of The Scoop was recorded with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and MicroStrategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Please send feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblock.co.

Michael Saylor is the Executive Chairman of MicroStrategy.

Since 2020, MicroStrategy has amassed an eye-catching bitcoin reserve, making it one of the largest corporate holders of bitcoin in the world. Critics have been vocal, but Saylor and his company have stood firm in their belief and commitment.

In this episode, Saylor explains why bitcoin’s performance over the last two years relative to other asset classes is indicative of relative strength, and gives his opinion on recent bitcoin developments including the flurry of ETF applications as well as the Ordinals/BRC-20 debate. 

Outline:

1:59 – Inflation & Bitcoin

8:29 – MicroStrategy’s leverage

9:12 – Bitcoin’s volatility regime

13:48 – Technocrats

15:19 – Bitcoin legitimization

19:34 – Bitcoin Maximalism

25:31 – Saylor on Ordinals

28:39 – Unregistered securities

30:20 – Crypto crackdown conspiracies

34:38 – Spot Bitcoin ETF

39:54 – Bitcoin dominance

51:50 – Work/life balance

53:30 – MicroStrategy’s miscalculation

55:09 – Thermodynamically sound economic energy

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors PayPal and CleanSpark.

About CleanSpark

CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) is America’s Bitcoin Miner™. Visit cleanspark.com/theblock to learn more about the CleanSpark way.

© 2023 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.

Bitcoin shed more than 4% in just 20 minutes after the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission told the Nasdaq and Cboe exchanges that recent filings for spot bitcoin ETF funds weren’t “clear and comprehensive.”

The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, which had been trading around $31,081 before the report, quickly dove to $29,770, falling below $30,000 for the first time in a week, according to data from CoinGecko. 

It’s since pared some losses and is currently trading at $30,167, down 1.4% over the past 24 hours. Some analysts questioned if the news was as bad as the WSJ’s headline made it seem.

“This isn’t as bad as headline,” Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said on Twitter. “Basically SEC wants them to name the “crypto exchange” and give more details on SSA. That’s understandable, arguably good news. I was under impression they’d have to update that as well.”

Surveillance sharing arrangements

The WSJ reported that the SEC had returned several recent filings for spot ETFs because they didn’t provide enough information about surveillance sharing arrangements. Asset managers can update language and refile, the WSJ reported.

Fidelity rejoined the race to a spot bitcoin ETF on Thursday, following other firms like BlackRock, WisdomTree and Invesco, which have all made similar filings in recent weeks.

The WSJ cited a Cboe spokeswoman as saying it intends to update and refile. Nasdaq and the SEC declined to comment, the WSJ said. Nasdaq and Fidelity declined to comment when contacted by The Block. 

Bitcoin blew past $30,000 earlier this month in the wake of the flurry of new ETF announcements, kicked off by BlackRock’s filing on June 15. Despite Friday’s decline, it’s still up 11.2% over the past month. 

© 2023 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.

Blockchain infrastructure firm QuickNode is adding support for the XRP Ledger, making it available to developers that use its platform. 

“Since its inception, XRPL has transformed the landscape of international and domestic payments, making them more streamlined and efficient,” the company said in a statement on Friday. “It uses proven crypto and blockchain technology to offer users enterprise-grade financial solutions faster, more transparent, and more cost-effective than traditional financial services.”

XRPL has a wide range of uses across including tokenization, CBDCs, DeFi and stablecoins, QuickNode said.

In January of this year, QuickNode secured $60 million in Series B funding, netting the firm a valuation of $800 million. Leading the round was Dan Tapiero’s 10T Holdings, with Tapier also joining QuickNode’s board of directors. Additional Series B supporters included Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six, Protocol Labs, Tiger Global and QED Investors, The Block previously reported.

© 2023 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.