First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Touches $38K on Quiet Holiday Weekend

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Bitcoin briefly touched $38,000 on Friday morning for the first time since May 2022 amid quiet trading in traditional markets on the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. The cryptocurrency has since retreated slightly, but remains 1.5% up on the day, with some observers predicting it will climb higher in the short term. Trader Michael Van Pope said in a tweet that the next price point for bitcoin is $40,000. “Slowly grinding upwards to a new resistance point and a break above $38K immediately means $40K is next,” he wrote. Ether added almost 2% on the day to trade at around $2,100.

A significant number of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) shares have been bought in the secondary market this year at a deep discount to net asset value in anticipation the trust’s conversion to an exchange-traded fund (ETF) will be approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), JPMorgan said in a research report Thursday. The bank estimates a net $2.5 billion has flowed into GBTC since the start of the year, increasing to $2.7 billion if adding the covering of short interest. “Assuming this buying flow was mostly speculative in anticipation of GBTC being converted to an ETF, then it is likely that this $2.7b would come out of GBTC as these investors take profit once GBTC gets converted,” analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote.

A court in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, approved the extradition of Terra founder Do Kwon to either South Korea or the United States, according to an update posted on the judiciary's website. Kwon was arrested in March after being caught in Podgorica's airport with falsified documents. The final decision on the extradition will be made by the Montenegrin justice minister after Kwon serves a four-month prison sentence for document forgery, it said. Following his arrest in Montenegro, Kwon faces multiple counts of fraud charged by U.S. federal prosecutors, in addition to existing civil charges in the U.S. and an investigation in South Korea related to last year's terraUSD collapse.

Chart of the Day

• The chart shows the share of the U.S. dollar, euro and Chinese yuan in SWIFT transactions since 2010.
• The greenback remains the most used currency in financial transactions even as popular narrative suggests de-dollarization has gathered pace.
• De-euroization has gathered pace, with the single currency's share falling to the lowest in over 13 years.
• Source: Deutsche Bank Research

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