First Mover Americas: Altcoins Lead Gains and Deutsche Bank to Explore Tokenization

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As bitcoin (BTC) moves higher, the recently shorted alternative cryptocurrencies like Solana's SOL may see leverage liquidations and exaggerated price rallies. Since Monday's brief move below crucial support at $25,000, bitcoin has risen over 6% to trade near $26,600, CoinDesk data show. Upbeat China August retail sales and factory output data released early Friday revived risk sentiment in financial markets, clearing the way for continued price gains in the leading cryptocurrencies. BCH$586.25 led advancers, adding 8% over the past 24 hours. Maker DAO’s MKR followed with a rise of 5%. XRP, Ether ETH$3,035.35, SOL, Tron's TRX and DOGE$0.1394 are all tracking bitcoin higher, as usual. The altcoin bounce comes days after traders sold these tokens, pricing in the possibility of defunct exchange FTX securing approval from the bankruptcy court to sell assets from its multibillion dollar cryptocurrency holdings. The recovery puts altcoin bears, who took leveraged bets on SOL and other tokens declining because of potential sales by FTX creditors, at risk of liquidation.

Binance.US has been accused of not cooperating in a probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has said the company’s staking, clearing and brokerage services violate federal securities law, court filings unsealed Thursday show. Federal U.S. regulators worry the crypto exchange’s use of Ceffu, a custody service offered by Binance’s international arm, violates a deal intended to stop assets being squirreled overseas. Binance.US’ holding company, known as BAM, has provided “only approximately 220 documents ... many that consist of unintelligible screenshots and documents without dates or signatures,” the SEC said, of the evidence-gathering process known as discovery. The company also lost two more high-level executives not long after the departure of CEO Brian Shroder. Head of Legal Krishna Juvvadi and Chief Risk Officer Sidney Majalya are leaving the company, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the departures. Juvvadi was hired in May last year, and Majalya was appointed in December 2021.

Deutsche Bank is working with Taurus, a Swiss startup specializing in cryptocurrency safekeeping, to establish digital asset custody and tokenization services, the companies said on Thursday. Germany’s biggest lender, Deutsche Bank, said in June it had applied for a crypto custody license from the country’s financial watchdog, BaFin. The bank’s publicly known crypto custody ambitions stretch back to early 2021, when details about a digital asset custody prototype appeared in a report by the World Economic Forum. Germany’s roll-out of rules for firms to custody crypto assets and, more broadly, Europe’s proposed regime for Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation (MiCA) are providing traditional finance firms with the clarity needed to explore the digital assets industry.

Chart of the Day

• The chart shows net liquidity injections by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) since 2015.
• While the central bank has turned accommodative this year, it has not yet resorted to the flood-like stimulus seen in 2015-16.
• The battered crypto market has been looking to PBOC to compensate for the monetary tightening in the West.
• Source: Longview Economics, Macrobond

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