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First Mover Americas: Coinbase Acquires Stake in Circle
The latest price moves in crypto markets in context for August 22, 2023.
Updated Aug 22, 2023, 12:18 p.m. Published Aug 22, 2023, 12:18 p.m.
This article originally appeared in First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.
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Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) bought a minority stake in stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Financial. The two companies also dissolved their Centre Consortium partnership, which issued USD Coin (USDC), the world’s second-largest stablecoin. As part of the move, Circle will bring issuance and governance of USDC fully in-house. Also, six more blockchains will gain native support for USDC, which is pegged at $1, bringing the total number of supported blockchains to 15. Coinbase and Circle, in a blog post and interviews with CoinDesk, did not disclose the size of the stake acquired by Coinbase. Coinbase did not give Circle cash for the stake, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The U.S. Department of Justice and Sam Bankman-Fried filed competing sets of jury instructions for the October trial of the FTX founder a day before he is set to be arraigned on a new superseding indictment. Prosecutors filed the document, titled "the government's requests to charge," late Monday, adapting from various previous sets of jury instructions including past statements from Judge Lewis Kaplan, the Southern District of New York judge overseeing Bankman-Fried's case. The FTX founder faces seven different charges, ranging from wire fraud, securities fraud and commodities fraud conspiracy to money laundering allegations, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Social platform Friend.tech, which lets holders buy "shares" of people who hold an account on X, formerly known as Twitter, and grants the buyers certain privileges, has surged to more than 100,000 addresses since its Aug. 10 launch according to a database created by Yearn Finance developer @Bantg. The database, listed briefly on GitHub and now withdrawn, apparently listed the crypto wallet addresses and linked X accounts. The growth correlates with the huge revenues made by the platform since the launch, with over $25 million in fees generated, according to DefiLlama. A Dune Analytics dashboard corroborates the finding, pegging the number of unique users to at least 80,000, with 15,000 users added since Sunday.
Chart of the day
- The chart shows spread between bitcoin’s next month and front month futures contracts trading on the CME and bitcoin’s spot market price.
- The spread remains elevated after last week’s 10% slide.
- Historically, negative spread has marked interim and bear market bottoms.
- Source: TradingView.
- Omkar Godbole
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KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
What to know:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
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- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
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Bitcoin pushes above $90,000 as traders eye change in pattern
Particularly hard-hit in 2025's final sessions, crypto-related stocks are bouncing in this year's first trading day.
What to know:
- Bitcoin rose above $90,000 during U.S. trading hours on Friday.
- It's a notable change in trend, as crypto prices late in 2025 were typically on the defensive while American stocks traded.
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