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A Bank of America report on a possible mass-adopted digital euro noted that such movement could spell difficulty for commercial banks that could see some of their deposits migrate to the European Central Bank.

Several months ago, MicroStrategy made waves when it first disclosed that it was buying bitcoin as a hedge against inflation — and in the time since, the company has only expanded its holdings and plans around the cryptocurrency.

And Renaissance Technologies — a hedge fund famous for its sterling market performance and quantitative approach to developing trading models — appears to have been major buyer of MicroStrategy’s stock this year.

As noted by The Block Research analyst Ryan Todd:

The third largest buyer of $MSTR in last 6 months is RenTech

Interestingly, they upped their position size by +4x in June, assuming in response to MicroStrategy CFO remarks on June 28th earnings call that the firm may allocate treasury into bitcoin…

(2/6) pic.twitter.com/Ru9kKeFCIK

— Ryan Todd (@_RJTodd) December 9, 2020

Notably, RenTech gave the nod for its flagship Medallion fund to begin starting CME bitcoin futures in March. And while it’s not clear whether the Medallion fund has begun to deploy capital in that direction, its investments in MicroStrategy signal an interest — however indirect — in what might be termed as “bitcoin plays.”

Market data indicates that RenTech made MicroStrategy stock buys in June and September, pushing its holdings to 1.96% of all outstanding shares. The total value of those shares is more than $40 million at a share price of $285 apiece. MicroStrategy first indicated its interest in bitcoin publicly during an earnings call in late July.

© 2020 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.

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Crypto payments firm BitPay has filed to become a national bank in the U.S.

Bitcoin payments company BitPay has filed paperwork with the top U.S. banking regulator to create a national bank.

Details of the effort were published in a December 8 legal notice published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The notice offered some detail on the application submitted to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The proposed bank — BitPay National Trust Bank — would be headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia — a suburb of the state capital of Atlanta. The listed address on the notice is the same for BitPay’s headquarters.

BitPay’s C-suite is listed as the proposed national bank’s organizers. These include co-founder and CEO Stephen Pair, co-founder Tony Gallippi, CFO Jagruti Solanki, general counsel and chief compliance officer Eden Doniger, and chief marketing officer William Zielke. 

The submission represents the latest effort by a firm in the cryptocurrency space to create a banking institution. Crypto exchange Kraken is forming a bank in the U.S. state of Wyoming, which is also home to another crypto-centric banking effort, Avanti. 

“We confirm BitPay has filed an application with the United States Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish BitPay National Trust Bank. A national trust bank is a limited purpose national bank that engages in trust activities,” Doniger told The Block in a statement, adding:

“The OCC is at the forefront of government regulation of the cryptocurrency industry.  Our operations as a national trust bank will be subject to strict safety and soundness requirements which will provide our customers with assurances that our services remain best in class and allow us to be subject to a uniform regulatory framework.”

“This is the first step of many on our journey to launch a chartered institution,” Doniger went on to say. “We applaud the OCC’s leadership in recognizing the need for innovation to facilitate regulation of cryptocurrency participants at a national level.”

BitPay, founded in 2011, offers a payments app as well as a prepaid Mastercard product.

Frank Chaparro contributed reporting.

© 2020 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.

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