Good morning and welcome to First Mover. I'm Lyllah Ledesma, here to guide you through the latest crypto markets, news and insights.
- Price Point: Bitcoin and Ether prices had a flat weekend with little movement. Fantom's FTM token is up 20% on the day.
- Market Movements: The 4-hour chart of the bitcoin price signals upward movement, according to one analyst.
- Feature: The seemingly dormant blockchain project Sparkster's apparent conversion of $22 million of Ether into the stablecoin USDC - visible in blockchain data - is raising suspicions among some community members, CoinDesk's Shaurya Malwa reports.
Price Point
Bitcoin (BTC) is hovering in the $29,000 to $30,000 range after an uneventful weekend. The world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization fell to a low of $28,900 on Saturday.
Ethereum is up 2.8% on the day, trading at around $3,000 after experiencing a relatively flat weekend.
Altcoins largely traded in line with BTC's flat performance over the weekend, with the exception of Layer 1 Project Fantom (FTM), which outperformed.
In traditional markets, stocks and the Chinese yuan advanced after President Joe Biden signaled he would reconsider China tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. U.S. stock futures start the week up 340 points for the Dow futures, 1.1% for the S&P 500 futures and 1% for the NASDAQ futures.
Market movements.
The crypto market is expected to move sideways until the release of the next U.S. Consumer Price Index data (in three weeks) and the next Federal Reserve meeting, according to Florian Giovannacci, head of trading at Covario AG.
Marcus Sotiriou, an analyst at U.K.-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock, said in an email to CoinDesk that bitcoin has recorded a higher high and a higher low on the 4-hour time frame, which is considered a bullish indicator for a continuation of the uptrend.
Fantom's FTM rose 20% over the last 24 hours, making it the top performer among the major digital assets on the day.
FTM is also up 48% in the last seven days.
Some analysts attribute Fantom's rise to rumors that DeFi developer Andre Cronje may return to the project.
Last Headlines.
- GameStop Introduces Crypto and NFT Wallet, Shares Rise 3%A beta version of the self-managed Ethereum wallet is now available for download on GameStop's website.
- Japanese Bank Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Sets Up Custodian for Digital AssetsThe bank's pivot to digital assets comes alongside a global banking shift toward cryptocurrencies.
- BNP Paribas joins JPM's Onyx blockchain network for fixed income trading: ReportThe French bank will use the Onyx network for short-term fixed income trading.
- Crypto Valley Venture Capital Launches African Blockchain Early Stage Fund.
The venture capitalist released a report noting that funding for African blockchain startups far exceeds investment in other venture funding.
Feature: ICO-funded project Sparkster converts $22 million in Ether to USDC - after 3 years and no product
By Shaurya Malwa
The conversion of nearly $22 million worth of Ether into the stablecoin USDC by the seemingly dormant blockchain project Sparkster in recent days has some observers calling for the fund to be blacklisted.
Bizarre narratives and ideas that have the potential to change the world peaked at the height of the ICO boom in early 2018. While some projects have built legitimate products and ecosystems after that, others have yet to deliver.
Sparkster appears to belong to the latter camp. The project raised more than $30 million in an ICO in July 2018 for what it described as a "no-code" software creation platform. The last tweet from the project's Twitter account was from 2021 - a link to a demonstration of a supposedly upcoming product. Nothing has been communicated from that account since.
However, the wallets with the proceeds from the ICO suddenly became active this weekend, and by Monday they were sitting on over $22 million of the USDC stablecoin. The move is considered unusual and is raising suspicion among some community members - especially since the Sparkster team has not issued a public statement.
Link to full story: ICO-funded project Sparkster converts $22M in Ether to USDC after 3 years, with no product
Today's newsletter was edited by Lyllah Ledesma and produced by Parikshit Mishra and Stephen Alpher.