Barclays upgrades Coinbase rating, total crypto market value falls below $2 trillion

Headlines

▌Barclays upgrades Coinbase and Robinhood ratings, calling their business models "mature"

British banking giant Barclays upgraded Coinbase (COIN) and Robinhood (HOOD) ratings from underweight to hold, citing their better business models. Barclays analyst Benjamin Budish said both companies have "matured significantly," especially due to product expansion and a more positive financial outlook. Barclays said in the report that Coinbase in particular could benefit from a friendlier regulatory environment, given that both presidential candidates have taken an increasingly friendly approach to the digital asset industry and have received approval for multiple spot cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Barclays said: "The factors that drove us to give an underweight rating are gradually weakening, and we now believe that the risk/reward of the two stocks is more balanced."

▌CMC shows that the total market value of cryptocurrencies has fallen below $2 trillion, and Coingecko shows that it has not fallen below it yet

According to CoinMarketCap (CMC) data, the total market value of cryptocurrencies has now fallen below $2 trillion, now at $1.92 trillion, a 24-hour drop of 2.5%. According to Coingecko data, the total market value of cryptocurrencies is now at $2.007 trillion, a 24-hour drop of 5.2%.

Market

As of press time, according to Coingecko data:

BTC's latest transaction price is $53,874.16, with a daily increase or decrease of -4.2%;

ETH's latest transaction price is 2226.37, with a daily increase or decrease of -6.3%;

BNB's latest transaction price is $486.09, with a daily increase or decrease of -3.4%；

SOL's latest transaction price is 124.74 US dollars, and its intraday increase or decrease is -3.6%；

DOGE's latest transaction price is 0.09189 US dollars, and its intraday increase or decrease is -6.8%；

XPR's latest transaction price is 0.5226 US dollars, and its intraday increase or decrease is -3.6%。

Policy

▌WisdomTree requests withdrawal of Ethereum Trust S-1 registration document submitted to the U.S. SEC

Asset management company WisdomTree requested to withdraw its Ethereum Trust S-1 registration document submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), while requesting the fee to be credited as "future use." The registration statement was originally filed on May 27, 2021. The company stated in its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on September 6: "The Company confirms that no securities have been and will not be issued or sold pursuant to the registration statement. WisdomTree acknowledged that it would not refund the fees paid to the U.S. SEC for filing the registration statement, but requested that the amount be credited as "for future use."

▌New York judge orders SEC to provide some documents in Coinbase case, but does not include documents related to Gensler

A New York judge approved part of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase's motion for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to hand over documents, however, the exchange's motion to issue a subpoena to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler was dismissed. U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla said in the order: "For the reasons stated in the minutes of the September 5, 2024 conference call, the court partially grants and partially denies the defendant's motion to compel." Coinbase had asked the court to compel the agency to provide certain documents related to the tokens in the SEC's complaint, documents related to the SEC's consideration of Coinbase becoming a public company in April 2021, and statements made by Gensler on personal and professional matters during his tenure at the SEC.

Blockchain Applications

▌ZK Nation: ZKsync governance contract is ready to go live on the mainnet

ZK Nation said that after several weeks of extensive testing on the testnet, the ZKsync governance contract is ready to go live on the mainnet, and is confident in its integrity and reliability. Completing the testnet phase is critical to the decentralization of the ZKsync protocol and full community management.

▌Solana Foundation seeks proposals to build Solana open source data tools

The Solana Foundation has issued a Request for Proposals announcement on the X platform. The Solana Foundation is looking for proposals to promote the development of Solana open source data tools, with up to $160,000 in funding. The two RFPs include: Solana Indexer Tool and Solana Discriminator Directory Details and Applications. The former has a total funding of $100,000, which supports helping developers by building an end-to-end open source infrastructure solution to access real-time and historical data from Solana programs and accounts; the latter has a total funding of $60,000 and aims to create an open source discriminator database that enables developers to interact with unknown deployed contracts and parse instructions. It is reported that both RFPs will help improve the developer experience and data tools on the Solana blockchain, and the submission deadline is October 4, 2024.

▌Ethereum social graph protocol efp.eth has been released on the test network

ETH Daily published an article stating that the Ethereum social graph protocol efp.eth has been released on the test network and is open to all users. The protocol allows users to log in with their Ethereum wallets, follow others, block wallets, and check their leaderboard rankings. EFP enables users to create and manage watchlists through EFP list NFTs. The protocol integrates data from ENS records, displaying profile information such as profile pictures, bios, and social links. Users can also import watchlists from Farcaster and Lens protocols. The test version is designed to stress test the protocol, and actions taken during the test will not carry over to the mainnet. Users can also use the protocol to claim EFP Beta Tester POAP NFT.

Cryptocurrency

▌Carrefour Express in Rouen, France becomes the first French supermarket to accept Bitcoin payments

HODL15Capital posted on the X platform that Carrefour Express in Rouen, France is the first French supermarket to accept Bitcoin payments, and customers can use the Lightning Network to pay through the Bridge Wallet application of the Swiss platform Mt Pelerin.

▌Founder of Base Chain: This week, 3 current or potential members of Congress have accepted on-chain donations on Base

Base chain founder @jessepollak posted on the X platform that this week, 3 current or potential members of Congress have accepted on-chain donations on Base.

▌ETH/BTC exchange rate "dead bull" James Fickel once again sold 3,000 ETH in exchange for 124 WBTC to repay the loan

According to the monitoring of chain data analyst Ember, ETH/BTC exchange rate "dead bull" James Fickel sold another 3,000 ETH in exchange for 124 WBTC to repay the loan after the decline last night. His long position on the ETH/BTC exchange rate has been reduced a lot as the ETH/BTC exchange rate continues to fall: at its peak, he borrowed and sold 2,981 WBTC at the end of May, and now it is 2,316. ​​

▌Blur founder: The on-chain ecology is much better than the 2019 bear market, and leading projects are often born in bear markets

Pacman, the founder of Blur and Blast, posted on social media that the 2019 bear market was actually depressing. There was no heat anyway, and there were no users in crypto at the time. Today we have DeFi, Perp DEXs, NFTs, stablecoins with income, and most importantly, there are still quite a lot of users on the chain, and they are very active (in terms of transaction volume and scale). Although it is difficult to predict whether the price of the currency will rise or fall in the next few days or weeks, this field will continue to exist. New category leaders emerge in every cycle, and these new leaders are almost always established in bear markets (Blur was also established in a bear market). It's not intuitive, but times like this are where the best opportunities are.

Important Economic Dynamics

▌The three major U.S. stock indexes closed down collectively, with the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both recording their largest weekly declines since March 2023

The three major U.S. stock indexes closed down collectively, with the Nasdaq down 2.55%, down 5.77% this week, and falling for two consecutive weeks, recording the largest weekly decline since January 2022; the S&P 500 fell 1.73%, down 4.25% this week; the Dow fell 1.01%, down 2.93% this week. Among them, the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones both recorded their largest weekly declines since March 2023, ending their three-week winning streak. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 4.52, and fell 12.22% this week, the largest weekly decline since 2020. Large technology stocks fell across the board, with Tesla falling more than 8%, Google and Nvidia falling more than 4%, Amazon and Meta falling more than 3%, Netflix and Intel falling more than 2%, Microsoft falling more than 1%, and Apple falling slightly. Coinbase fell nearly 8%, and MicroStrategy fell more than 4%.

▌Former U.S. Treasury Secretary: Weak employment brings the Fed one step closer to a 50 basis point rate cut

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Summers said that while the August non-farm payrolls report was not particularly bad, it did make it more difficult to predict the extent to which the Fed might cut interest rates this month. Summers said in an interview, "While the data does not show very obvious weakness, if you are concerned about the recent statistical trends, then these data certainly do not give you assurance of economic health." "Compared with my guess a month or two ago, the probability of a 25 basis point and a 50 basis point rate cut in September looks closer." Summers said that in the final analysis, the size of the Fed's first action is not important. Officials will closely monitor the development of the economic outlook and adjust policies accordingly. "If the economy weakens significantly, they will cut interest rates significantly," he said. "If the economy does not really weaken significantly, they may cut interest rates at a rate of about one meeting per meeting."

▌U.S. stocks continued to fall, with the S&P 500 down 1.68%

U.S. stocks continued to fall, with the Dow down 1%, the Nasdaq down 2.48%, and the S&P 500 down 1.68%.

Golden Encyclopedia

▌What is an inverse futures contract?

An inverse futures contract is a financial arrangement that requires the seller to pay the buyer the difference between the agreed price and the current price when the contract expires. Unlike traditional futures, the seller benefits from a drop in price. The nature of inverse futures contracts is nonlinear. When a trader goes long on a BTC/USD inverse futures contract, they are shorting the U.S. dollar. Because the contract is inverse, the trader's position is worth less in Bitcoin, and the higher the value of Bitcoin, the higher its value relative to the U.S. dollar.

Disclaimer: As a blockchain information platform, Golden Finance publishes articles for information reference only and is not intended as actual investment advice. Please establish a correct investment philosophy and be sure to raise your risk awareness.