First Mover Americas: First Mover: Bitcoin Hovers Over $43K, Chainlink Extends Rally

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Bitcoin (BTC) traded little changed, hovering just over $43,000 on Monday, while altcoins gained. Chainlink’s LINK has added 7% over the past 24 hours after surging to a 22-month high Friday, ending a three-month bull breather for the token of the leading decentralized oracle network. "Traditional financial institutions need data, compute, and cross-chain capabilities to adopt blockchains and tokenized RWAs at scale. Only the Chainlink platform provides all three," Chainlink said on X last week. Also advancing was Flare Network: The EVM-compatible layer 1’s FLR token rose just under 7%. Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency by market value, rose 1%.

Bankrupt crypto lender Genesis filed a motion Friday asking a U.S. judge to approve the sale of over $1.6 billion in bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and ethereum classic (ETC) held in Grayscale’s trust products. If the motion is approved, the market could see yet another chunk of selling pressure on bitcoin. In January, bankrupt exchange FTX sold over $1 billion worth of GBTC holdings. That coincided with the price dropping to $39,000 from $49,000. Nearly $1.4 billion of Genesis’ assets were held in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which has since converted to become a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF). It also holds $165 million in Grayscale Ethereum Trust and $38 million in Grayscale Ethereum Classic Trust, the filing shows.

The increasing dominance of stablecoin tether (USDT) is bad for the wider crypto ecosystem, JPMorgan (JPM) said in a research report Thursday. The bank said it views the "increasing concentration in tether over the past year as a negative for the stablecoin universe and the crypto ecosystem more broadly. Stablecoins are facing regulatory risk across multiple jurisdictions, and “tether is mostly at risk given its lack of regulatory compliance and transparency,” analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote. There is an opportunity for other stablecoins, however, as issuers that have been more aligned with regulations could benefit from any resulting crackdown and take market share, the bank said.

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CORRECTION (Feb. 5, 14:24 UTC): Corrects Chainlink's token to LINK and transposed letters in EVM in first item.