CoinDesk Crypto

Cover Protocol announced it’s exploring launching a new COVER token through a snapshot after its current one was abused in a minting attack by a “white hat” hacker on Monday morning.

The hacker, which could be an individual or a small group, claimed responsibility for an exploit in the decentralized finance (DeFi) insurance project, tricking the protocol into minting 40 quintillion COVER tokens. The hacker cashed out the tokens in other cryptocurrencies including ether, DAI and WBTC but later gave all the funds back to the protocol.

“The 4350 ETH that has been returned by the attacker will also be handled through a snapshot to the LP token holders. We are still investigating,” according to the project’s Twitter account urging its users not to buy any COVER tokens now.

Related: Who Insures the Insurer? Cover Protocol Attack Exposes DeFi’s Promise and Peril

Read more: Who Insures the Insurer? Cover Protocol Attack Exposes DeFi’s Promise and Peril

The development team behind Cover Protocol, which recently merged with Yearn Finance, is still investigating how exactly the hacker exploited its system. Sorawit Suriyakarn, chief technology officer at Band Protocol, said the attack appears to be related to a bug in the smart contract, where memory and storage were used incorrectly.

COVER token’s price has been on a wild ride over the last day, plummeting by over 75% to $177 on news of the hack before partially rebounding to over $240 after the hacker announced they’d returned the funds.

• Cover Protocol Attack Perpetrated by ‘White Hat,’ Funds Returned, Hacker Claims
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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it obtained an order imposing an asset freeze and other emergency relief against Virgil Capital LLC and its affiliated companies in connection with an alleged securities fraud relating to Virgil Capital’s flagship cryptocurrency trading fund, Virgil Sigma Fund LP.

• Stefan Qin, the 23-year-old founder of Virgil Capital, has been accused by the SEC of “fabricated records” for failing to redeem $3.5 million in investments and attempting to withdraw $1.7 million in investor funds to pay off Chinese loan sharks, the SEC said.
• The defendants were alleged of misleading investors to believe their money was being used solely for cryptocurrency trading via a proprietary algorithm, while Qin and the entities used the proceeds for personal purposes or for other undisclosed high-risk investments since at least 2018.
• The investors have not been able to get redemptions from Virgil Sigma Fund as early as July and they were told their interests had been transferred to another fund, the VQR Multistrategy Fund LP, which was essentially controlled by Qin as well. However, no such transfers have occurred and the redemptions remain outstanding, according to the SEC complaint.
• The commission also alleges that Qin is actively attempting to misappropriate assets from the VQR Fund and to raise new investments in the Sigma Fund.

• Coinbase to Suspend XRP Trading Following SEC Suit Against Ripple
• SEC Disapproves BOX Security’s Request to Report Stock Trading Data on Ethereum Blockchain
• XRP Is a Crypto Asset in Japan, Not a Security, Ripple Partner SBI Claims
• Bitstamp to Halt XRP Trading, Deposits in US Due to SEC Lawsuit

Bitcoin has been declared dead or dying roughly 390 times since 2010. But this year it’s dying much less frequently. 

In 2020, bitcoin has been reported dead or dying only 11 times, per a list of these faux obituaries maintained by a Singapore-based website called 99 Bitcoins. 

Bitcoin’s yearly “obituary” count hasn’t been so low since 2012, three years after bitcoin launched. The team behind the website confirmed to CoinDesk the list is actively maintained to date.

Related: Coinbase Awards Its First Round of Bitcoin Developer Grants

The sharp decrease in obituaries correlates with bitcoin’s record-breaking price action this year after breaking its 2017 all-time high in November with a total year-to-date gain of over 270%.

In the past, it was “in vogue to publicly dismiss or even shame those who believed in bitcoin’s value proposition,” said Kevin Kelly, global macro strategy lead at Delphi Digital and former equity analyst at Bloomberg, in a direct message with CoinDesk.

But now the game has changed.

“Mass retail speculation and viral memes have been swapped for family offices and world-class macro investors,” Kelly said.

Related: Bitcoin Price Caps Best Week in 20 Months With 23% Gain

Bitcoin’s quickly-growing cadre of institutional buyers includes giants MassMutual and Guggenheim. And their sizable investments – combined with signs of rekindled retail interest – make announcing the bellwether cryptocurrency’s death increasingly difficult.

In a December bitcoin report, Kelly’s research team wrote, “Institutional investors have not only turned net long since September, but also the magnitude of their net exposure, measured in BTC, has increased relative to prior periods as well.” 

Curiously, authors of disingenuous bitcoin “obituaries” have overlooked both times when the network actually has “died,” according to Pierre Rochard, Kraken’s lead bitcoin strategist. 

In 2010, an inflation bug briefly enabled anyone using the network to create an infinite amount of bitcoins, which, for many intents and purposes, caused the network to die, Rochard said. In 2013, bitcoin “died” a second time when a flawed version of its source code unexpectedly caused the block size limit to increase.

“In both cases bitcoin was promptly resurrected by the collective will of its users,” Rochard said. To save the network, bitcoin nodes reverted to an older version of the software in 2013 and rewound the blockchain back to a point before the inflation bug in 2010. 

“Few critics understand what happened when bitcoin actually died, twice,” Rochard told CoinDesk in an email.

In the aftermath of these incidents, bitcoin’s “robust” fundamentals and “rapid adoption” have created market conditions with multiple “parabolic revaluations,” Rochard said, increasing both its adoption and the attention paid to its technical strength, leaving skeptics with little room for continued death pronouncements. 

As bitcoin lives on, “the career risk is no longer from embracing bitcoin,” according to Kelly. “It’s from failing to give [bitcoin] the time and respect it deserves.”

• Bitcoin.org Briefly Shut Down by Denial of Service Attack; Bitcoin Not Affected
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Nasdaq-listed bitcoin mining company Riot Blockchain (RIOT) reached a $1.08 billion market capitalization Monday after surging nearly 13% in early trading hours.

• Shares of the Castle Rock, Colo.-based firm have gained over 1,250% in 2020, currently trading hands above $16.
• Over the same period, bitcoin gained nearly 280%.
• Riot has issued nearly 17 million shares since November, with a total of 67.5 million shares outstanding, according to data collected by ycharts.com.
• Riot has aggressively expanded the size and sophistication of its mining operations in 2020, including a planned pilot project in Texas to test water immersion cooling technology in addition to purchasing over 31,000 new ASIC mining machines this year, per CoinDesk’s prior reporting.
• Riot shares opened Monday nearly 18% higher than the Thursday close on Christmas Eve.
• Riot pivoted its business model from biotech to bitcoin mining in October 2017 when the company’s value was less than $50 million.
• Riot did not immediately respond to a comment request from CoinDesk.

• Marathon Patent Agrees to Buy 70K ASIC Miners From Bitmain for $170M
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A lack of whales with bitcoin (BTC) aplenty to sell may be clearing the way for the price of the leading cryptocurrency to rise further, according to CryptoQuant Chief Executive Ki Young Ju.

• Fewer “whales” – bitcoin holders possessing large balances – are depositing bitcoin (BTC) onto exchanges the past few days, according to CryptoQuant, a crypto market data aggregator.
• CryptoQuant’s “Exchange Whale Ratio,” which is calculated by dividing top 10 bitcoin inflow transactions in an hour by total BTC exchange inflows, has dropped below 85%.
• From Dec. 8-22, the ratio stayed above 85% as whales were likely profit-taking during the bull run, which reached a price zenith of $28,352 Sunday according to CoinDesk 20 data.
• Some market exhaustion is expected, according to Young Ju, but he expects institutions to pick up some of the slack.
• “I think this bull run will continue as institutional investors keep buying and Exchange Whale Ratio keeps below 85%,” Young Ju noted on Twitter.

• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Hovers Around $27K While ETH/BTC Pair Goes Bullish
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• Bitcoin Tops $28K for 1st Time, Hours After Crossing $27K; Market Cap Now Exceeds $500B

Not everyone is turning their backs on XRP, the embattled asset associated with San Francisco-based Ripple Labs.

• Japan-based financial services company SBI Holdings released a statement Monday saying under Japanese law XRP is a “cryptocurrency asset.”
• The statement arrives after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week sued Ripple Labs claiming it made a $1.3 billion profit selling XRP to retail investors while failing to register the cryptocurrency as a security in the U.S.
• SBI referenced a research article by Sadakazu Osaki of the Nomura Research Institute indicating under Japanese law XRP is a “cryptocurrency asset” and it is not a security in Japan.
• CoinDesk reported in October Ripple intended to invest in SBI’s MoneyTap blockchain-based payments subsidiary, which planned to used the RippleNet technology to lower Japanese transfer costs.
• Many cryptocurrency companies are backing away from XRP around the world, including Bitwise in the United States, Bitstamp in Europe and Hong Kong trading platform OSL.
• “SBI is putting lipstick on a pig to try and minimize the damage to its reputation in Japan from the Ripple lawsuit,” said Joel Edgerton, chief operating officer of BitFlyer USA, a cryptocurrency exchange that also has a strong presence in Japan. “SBI is an aggressive player in the Japanese financial industry and it is working to buy the pieces required to make it a leader in Japanese crypto,” Edgerton added. “However, it has many other regulated businesses that will not want any negative reputation impact.”

• Coinbase to Suspend XRP Trading Following SEC Suit Against Ripple
• SEC Disapproves BOX Security’s Request to Report Stock Trading Data on Ethereum Blockchain
• SEC Obtains Emergency Asset Freeze Against Virgil Capital
• Bitstamp to Halt XRP Trading, Deposits in US Due to SEC Lawsuit

The decentralized finance (DeFi) insurance project Cover Protocol was hacked earlier Monday in an infinite printing scheme, causing the price of the COVER token to plunge. Hours later, Grap.Finance, a “white hat hacker” claimed responsibility for the attack via their Twitter account, saying all funds had been returned.

The exploiter has cashed out over $4 million including about 1,400 ether, one million DAI and 90 WBTC. The attacker earlier created 40 quintillion COVER tokens and sold $5 million worth of them on Monday morning. More than $3 million has been returned.

The price of COVER has plummeted to $177 by over 75% over the last 24-hour period, according to the data from CoinGecko.

Related: Who Insures the Insurer? Cover Protocol Attack Exposes DeFi’s Promise and Peril

Cover Protocol later announced it was exploring launching a new token through a snapshot “before the minting exploit was abused.”

“The 4350 ETH that has been returned by the attacker will also be handled through a snapshot to the LP token holders. We are still investigating,” according to the project’s Twitter account, which urged users not to buy any COVER tokens now.

Sorawit Suriyakarn, chief technology officer at Band Protocol, said the exploit’s approach appears to be relatively new and was not spotted in any recent attacks.

“The attack does 4 things: 1. Deposit LP tokens to Blacksmith contract 2. Withdraw *almost* all LP tokens to inflate ‘accRewardsPerToken’ 3. Deposit LP tokens again (this is the interesting bit) 4. Claim COVER rewards and trick the contract to mint quintillion of $COVER tokens,” Suriyakarn said in his tweet.

Related: Cover Protocol May Launch New Token Following Attack

The hacker tricked the protocol into minting new tokens as rewards by exploiting a bug in the smart contract Solidity, which involves using memory and storage incorrectly in the programming language.

The Cover DeFi protocol, designed as an insurance product that could help users reduce smart contract failure-related risks, merged with Yearn.Finance a month ago.

This story is developing and will be updated

Update: This story was updated with new information about Cover’s latest announcement at 16:25 UTC.

• DeFi Christmas: DEX Aggregator 1inch Launches Governance Token to Take On Uniswap
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Nasdaq-listed Marathon Patent Group (MARA), one of the largest enterprise bitcoin mining companies in North America, announced its pre-order purchase of 70,000 Antminer S-19 ASIC miners from Bitmain for $170 million, more than tripling the size of Marathon’s fleet.

• “This purchase is the largest order in dollar terms as well as the single largest order for S-19 ASIC miners that Bitmain has ever received,” said Marathon Chairman and CEO Merrick Okamoto.
• Marathon said it sees receiving an initial batch of 7,000 S-19 miners in July 2021 and the final shipment in December 2021.
• Marathon said its mining fleet will include more than 103,000 machines after this latest order has been received and deployed with a total mining capacity of 10.36 exahashes per second (EH/s).  
• Shares of Marathon opened Monday trading nearly 30% higher than their Friday close, trading hands just below $14. But some gains were given back as the share price dipped roughly 5% around 15:30 UTC.
• The monster order comes after a holiday weekend in which the price of bitcoin hit a succession of new all-time highs.

Update (Dec. 28, 15:43 UTC): Updated with Marathon stock prices.

• Bitcoin Mining Company Riot Blockchain Passes $1B in Market Cap
• Mining Firm Bitfarms Set to Reach 1.2 EH/s Hashrate, Deploy 3,000 New Machines
• Riot Purchases Additional 15,000 Mining Machines From Bitmain
• Beyond ASICs: 3 Trends Driving Bitcoin Mining Innovation

The Israeli Tax Authority (ITA) is now requiring residents to disclose their cryptocurrency holdings for taxation purposes, according to a Globes report. 

• According to the report, dozens of Israelis who own digital currencies have recently received notification from the ITA telling them they must fully disclose their assets for tax purposes.
• The ITA requested data from cryptocurrency exchanges in Israel and outside of the country in order to obtain the data and information regarding the accounts held by Israelis.
• For the information the tax authority applied EU Common Reporting Standards regulations and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act which shared U.S. Internal Revenue Service data with Israel, the report said.
• The ITA states investors in digital currencies are subject to a 25% capital gains tax, as long as their activity does not turn into a commercial enterprise.

Read more: How Israeli VCs Are Doubling Down on DeFi Startups

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• IRS Again Warns Crypto Investors They Under-Reported Gains
• PayPal’s Crypto Offering May Be ‘a Huge Headache’ for Taxpayers
• Coinbase Reportedly Warns Some UK Users It’s Handing Their Details to the Taxman

The world’s largest asset manager BlackRock is seeking to hire a vice president, blockchain lead to help build and execute strategies and “drive demand” for the company’s crypto and crypto-related offerings.

• BlackRock, which has $6.84 trillion assets under management, has posted a job vacancy for a New York-based VP blockchain lead to help with the valuation of crypto assets.
• According to the post, the applicant must have at least a year’s experience in the technological foundations of blockchain technology including cryptographic hash functions, distributed network consensus mechanisms, and public-private key cryptography.
• Candidates should be able to “devise and articulate fundamental valuation methodologies for crypto-assets; evaluate game theory and decentralizing governance models associated with blockchain technology,” said the listing.
• Recently BlackRock CEO Larry Fink made some bullish comments on bitcoin, stating it has “caught the attention” of many people and that the nascent cryptocurrency asset class can possibly “evolve” into a global market asset.

Read more: BlackRock’s Fink Says Bitcoin Can Possibly ‘Evolve’ Into Global Asset

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• Germany Legalizes Electronic Securities on the Blockchain
• Crypto Finance AG Hires SIX Group Exec to Lead Brokerage Business
• Bloccelerate VC Raises $12M Fund to Bet on Enterprise Blockchain Adoption

CME Group’s recent announcement that it will launch ether (ETH) futures on Feb. 8, 2021, is the “writing on the wall” that institutions will being buying the cryptocurrency next year, according to a pair of tweets by Ryan Watkins, an analyst at crypto data provider Messari.

• The price of the second largest cryptocurrency just topped $700 for the first time since May 2018, and at the time of writing is at $701.90, up 11.19% in the last 24 hours.

• Ether Trades Above $700 for the First Time Since 2018
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Ether prices soared on Sunday, trading above $700 for the first time since May 21, 2018.

• The native currency of the Ethereum network’s break above $700 marks a 11% gain in just 24 hours.
• Ether was as low as $624.76 in the 11:00 UTC (6:00 a.m. ET) hour, just five hours before trading at $700.
• The second-highest cryptocurrency by market cap, the total value of ether was $80 billion as of press time.
• Bitcoin has also been rallying over the Christmas weekend, at one point piercing the $29,000 mark. It was trading in the $27,300 range when ether made its move higher than $700.
• Volume was noticeably higher on the eight exchanges tracked by the CoinDesk 20. The combined value of ether changing hands on those exchanges was more than $2.3 billion. The average daily volume was $2.175 billion over the previous seven days.

• Institutions Will Start Buying Ether in 2021, Messari Analyst Says
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Stays in Tight Range but Gains Dominance as XRP Crumbles
• Camila Russo on Building The Defiant and the Future of DeFi
• First Mover: XRP Plunges 20% as Traders Assess SEC’s Ripple Suit

After tearing through $27,000 for the first time ever only a few hours before, the price of bitcoin briefly surged past $28,000 Sunday morning as the leading cryptocurrency’s recent meteoric rise continues. BTC’s market value now exceeds $500 billion.

• Recently, BTC has been leaving a string of broken records in its wake after passing the psychologically key $20,000 mark for the first time on Dec. 16.
• In the last several days BTC seems to found yet another gear, breaking through $25,000 Friday night for the first time, and going through $26,000 Saturday afternoon like a hot poker through one-ply tissue.
• Roughly half a day later, BTC surged past $27,000 early Sunday morning, before racing past $28,000 just before dawn, before settling down to $27,604.67 at this writing, up 9.63% in the last 24 hours.
• Year-to-date, BTC is up more than 275%. In the last 48 hours, it’s risen 14%.
• With a market value of $512.34 billion, BTC is now more valuable than all but seven publicly traded companies, sitting between Alibaba at $545.4 billion and Tencent Holdings at $509.7 billion, according to Statista data.
• Institutional investors are perceived to be driving this record-setting run. Among them: Anthony Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital ($25 million in December); MassMutual ($100 million in December); and Guggenheim (up to 10% of its $5 billion macro fund).
• With the end of the year looming, some fund managers may also be buying BTC so they can brag next year about being smart enough to get in in 2020 while neglecting to say at which price they had done so.
• In addition, the U.S. Federal Reserve, along with other central banks, has been printing money with abandon trying to stave off the worst economic effects of the pandemic, while U.S. President Donald Trump has been pushing Congress to pass an even bigger relief package to allow for larger stimulus checks. These actions are viewed by many as potential catalysts for inflation and bad for the U.S. dollar, both of which could be positive for BTC.
• While the tremendous rise in BTC might make it easy to think we’re going to see $30,000 before the end of the year, it’s good to keep in mind that this surge is taking place over a holiday weekend on thin volume. Monday could well bring a different narrative.
• Still, there are those who think BTC is just getting started. Scaramucci has said he believes BTC is in the “early innings” and Saturday afternoon, crypto venture capitalist/bitcoin evangelist Tim Draper tweeted that the price of the leading cryptocurrency could rise ten-fold by the end of 2022.

• Bitcoin Soars Past $27K for 1st Time, Up $2K in a Day; Market Cap Now Tops $500B
• Bitcoin Tops $26K for First Time, Less Than a Day After Passing $25K
• Bitcoin Hits $25K for First Time Ever, Approaches $26K
• Bitcoin Tops $24.6K on Christmas Day, Sets New All-Time High

After hitting $25,000 on Dec. 25 and $26,000 on Dec. 26, quite naturally the price of bitcoin (BTC) soared past $27,000 early on Dec. 27 as the leading cryptocurrency’s recent meteoric rise continues. BTC’s market value now exceeds $500 billion.

• Recently, BTC has been leaving a string of broken records in its wake after passing the psychologically key $20,000 mark for the first time ever on Dec. 16.
• In the last several days BTC seems to found yet another gear, breaking through $25,000 Friday night for the first time, and going through $26,000 Saturday afternoon like a hot poker through one-ply tissue.
• Roughly half a day later, BTC surged to a new all-time high of $27,666.17 early Sunday morning, before settling down to $27,519.52 at this writing, up 11.04% in the last 24 hours.
• Year-to-date, BTC is up more than 270%.
• With a market value of $512.34 billion, BTC is now more valuable than all but seven publicly traded companies, sitting between Alibaba at $545.4 billion and Tencent Holdings at $509.7 billion, according to Statista data.
• Institutional investors are perceived to be driving this record-setting run. Among them: Anthony Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital ($25 million in December); MassMutual ($100 million in December); and Guggenheim (up to 10% of its $5 billion macro fund).
• With the end of the year looming, some fund managers may also be buying BTC so they can brag next year about being smart enough to get in in 2020 while neglecting to say at which price they had done so.
• In addition, the U.S. Federal Reserve, along with other central banks, has been printing money with abandon trying to stave off the worst economic effects of the pandemic while U.S. President Donald Trump has been pushing Congress to pass an even bigger relief package to allow for larger stimulus checks.
• These actions are viewed by many as potential catalysts for inflation and bad for the U.S. dollar, both of which could be positive for BTC.
• While the tremendous rise in BTC might make it easy to think we’re going to see $28,000 on Dec. 28, $29,000 on Dec. 29 and so on, it’s good to keep in mind that this surge is taking place over a holiday weekend on thin volume. Monday could well bring a different narrative.
• Still, there are those who think BTC is just getting started. Scaramucci has said he believes BTC is in the “early innings” and Saturday afternoon, crypto venture capitalist/bitcoin evangelist Tim Draper tweeted that the price of the leading cryptocurrency could rise ten-fold by the end of 2022.

• Bitcoin Tops $28K for 1st Time, Hours After Crossing $27K; Market Cap Now Exceeds $500B
• Bitcoin Tops $26K for First Time, Less Than a Day After Passing $25K
• Bitcoin Hits $25K for First Time Ever, Approaches $26K
• Bitcoin Tops $24.6K on Christmas Day, Sets New All-Time High

After hitting $25,000 on Dec. 25 and $26,000 on Dec. 26, quite naturally the price of bitcoin (BTC) soared past $27,000 early on Dec. 27 as the leading cryptocurrency’s recent meteoric rise continues. BTC’s market value now exceeds $500 billion.

• Recently, BTC has been leaving a string of broken records in its wake after passing the psychologically key $20,000 mark for the first time ever on Dec. 16.
• In the last several days BTC seems to found yet another gear, breaking through $25,000 Friday night for the first time, and going through $26,000 Saturday afternoon like a hot poker through one-ply tissue.
• Roughly half a day later, BTC surged to a new all-time high of $27,666.17 early Sunday morning, before settling down to $27,519.52 at this writing, up 11.04% in the last 24 hours.
• Year-to-date, BTC is up more than 270%.
• With a market value of $512.34 billion, BTC is now more valuable than all but seven publicly traded companies, sitting between Alibaba at $545.4 billion and Tencent Holdings at $509.7 billion, according to Statista data.
• Institutional investors are perceived to be driving this record-setting run. Among them: Anthony Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital ($25 million in December); MassMutual ($100 million in December); and Guggenheim (up to 10% of its $5 billion macro fund).
• With the end of the year looming, some fund managers may also be buying BTC to be able to brag next year they’d been smart enough to get in in 2020 while neglecting to say at which price they had done so.
• In addition, the U.S. Federal Reserve, along with other central banks, has been printing money with abandon trying to stave off the worst economic effects of the pandemic while U.S. President Donald Trump has been pushing Congress to pass an even bigger relief package to allow for larger stimulus checks.
• These actions are viewed by many as potential catalysts for inflation and bad for the U.S. dollar, both of which could be positive for BTC.
• While the tremendous rise in BTC might make it easy to think we’re going to see $28,000 on Dec. 28, $29,000 on Dec. 29 and so on, it’s good to keep in mind that this surge is taking place over a holiday weekend on thin volume. Monday could well bring a different narrative.
• Still, there are those who think BTC is just getting started. Scaramucci has said he believes BTC is in the “early innings” and Saturday afternoon, crypto venture capitalist/bitcoin evangelist Tim Draper tweeted that the price of the leading cryptocurrency could rise ten-fold by the end of 2022.

• Bitcoin Tops $26K for First Time, Less Than a Day After Passing $25K
• Bitcoin Hits $25K for First Time Ever, Approaches $26K
• Bitcoin Tops $24.6K on Christmas Day, Sets New All-Time High
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Stays in Tight Range but Gains Dominance as XRP Crumbles

After hitting $25,000 on Dec. 25 and $26,000 on Dec. 26, quite naturally the price of bitcoin (BTC) soared past $27,000 early on Dec. 27 as the leading cryptocurrency’s recent meteoric rise continues. BTC’s market value now exceeds $500 billion.

• Recently, BTC has been leaving a string of broken records in its wake after passing the psychologically key $20,000 mark for the first time ever on Dec. 16.
• In the last several days BTC seems to found yet another gear, breaking through $25,000 Friday night for the first time, and going through $26,000 Saturday afternoon like a hot poker through one-ply tissue.
• Roughly half a day later, BTC surged to a new all-time high of $27,666.17 early Sunday morning, before settling down to $27,519.52 at this writing, up 11.04% in the last 24 hours.
• Year-to-date BTC is up more than 270%.
• With a market value of $512.34 billion, BTC is now more valuable than all but seven publicly traded companies, sitting between Alibaba at $545.4 billion and Tencent Holdings at $509.7 billion, according to Statista data.
• Institutional investors are perceived to be driving this record-setting run. Among them: Anthony Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital ($25 million in December); MassMutual ($100 million in December);  and Guggenheim (up to 10% of its $5 billion macro fund).
• With the end of the year looming, some fund managers may also be buying BTC to be able to brag next year they’d been smart enough to get in in 2020 while neglecting to say at which price they had done so.
• In addition, the U.S. Federal Reserve, along with other central banks, has been printing money with abandon trying to stave off the worst economic effects of the pandemic while U.S. President Donald Trump has been pushing Congress to pass an even bigger relief package to allow for larger stimulus checks.
• These actions are viewed by many as potential catalysts for inflation and bad for the U.S. dollar, both of which could be positive for BTC.
• While the tremendous rise in BTC might make it easy to think we’re going to see $28,000 on Dec. 28, $29,000 on Dec. 29 and so on, it’s good to keep in mind that this surge is taking place over a holiday weekend on thin volume. Monday could well bring a different narrative.
• Still, there are those who think BTC is just getting started. Scaramucci has said he believes BTC is in the “early innings” and Saturday afternoon, crypto venture capitalist/bitcoin evangelist Tim Draper tweeted that the price of the leading cryptocurrency could rise ten-fold by the end of 2022.

• Bitcoin Tops $26K for First Time, Less Than a Day After Passing $25K
• Bitcoin Hits $25K for First Time Ever, Approaches $26K
• Bitcoin Tops $24.6K on Christmas Day, Sets New All-Time High
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Stays in Tight Range but Gains Dominance as XRP Crumbles

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is the winner of Forbes’ inaugural “Person of the Year in Crypto” award, an honor for which the central bank chairman is unlikely to make room on his mantel.

• Because Powell’s Fed effectively printed more than $3 trillion in new money, almost doubling the central bank’s balance sheet in the process, it helped create an atmosphere that converted many long-time crypto skeptics into believers, Forbes noted in the award. Forbes quoted venture firm Pantera Capital as saying the Fed’s actions created “two centuries of debt in one month.”
• That spending spree and concomitant debt explosion led one of the judges, Anthony Pompliano of Morgan Creek Digital, to credit Powell with basically creating a “$3 trillion marketing campaign for bitcoin.”
• Crypto investors have been betting all year that the flood of government and central bank spending to fight the coronavirus-caused economic slowdown will eventually lead to inflation, against which bitcoin is viewed as a hedge.

• Federal Reserve Keeps Rates Unchanged, Adds Qualitative Guidance on Pace of Money-Printing
• First Mover: Stimulus Tests Bitcoin in Real-Time, and It Passes $20K
• New Federal Reserve ‘Qualitative’ Approach Could Push Further Into Experimental Realm
• What Is a CBDC?

The price of bitcoin (BTC) passed $26,000, hardly resting after blowing through what was supposed to have been the landmark level of $25,000 less than 24 hours earlier.

• Recently, the leading cryptocurrency has been leaving a string of broken records in its wake at an increasingly rapid pace after passing the psychologically key $20,000 mark for the first time ever on Dec. 16.
• BTC broke $25,000 Friday night for the first time, and set a new all-time high of $26,368.16 Saturday afternoon, before settling back to $26,246.72, up 7.39% on the day. Year-to-date BTC is up more than 250%.
• Institutional investors are perceived to be driving this record-setting run. Among them: Anthony Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital ($25 million in December); MassMutual ($100 million in December); and Guggenheim (up to 10% of its $5 billion macro fund).
• In addition, the U.S. Federal Reserve, along with other central banks, has been printing money with abandon trying to stave off the worst economic effects of the pandemic while U.S. President Donald Trump has been pushing Congress to pass an even bigger relief package to allow for larger stimulus checks. These actions are viewed by many as likely catalysts for inflation, against which BTC is viewed as a hedge.
• There are those who think BTC is just getting started. Scaramucci has said BTC is in the “early innings” and this afternoon, crypto venture capitalist/bitcoin evangelist Tim Draper tweeted that the price of the leading cryptocurrency could rise ten-fold by the end of 2022.

• Bitcoin Hits $25K for First Time Ever, Approaches $26K
• Bitcoin Tops $24.6K on Christmas Day, Sets New All-Time High
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Stays in Tight Range but Gains Dominance as XRP Crumbles
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Rangebound as XRP Plummets After SEC Lawsuit

Cryptocurrency market-maker B2C2 halted the trading of XRP with U.S.-based counterparties, effective this past Thursday, following the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Ripple Labs, according to a report in The Block.

• Non-U.S. clients can still trade the token but need to pre-fund all short trades, according to The Block report, which cited no sources
• B2C2’s move comes as cryptocurrency exchanges Beaxy, Bitstamp, OSL and CrossTower have said they were halting XRP trading, as well as market-makers Galaxy Digital and Jump Trading, which both stopped XRP market-making.
• According to a lawsuit filed Tuesday, Ripple raised $1.3 billion over a seven-year period to retail investors through its sale of XRP on an ongoing basis.  If the SEC prevails, XRP could become a pariah token as platforms that continued to list the crypto may have to register as securities exchanges.

UPDATE (Dec. 27, 1:01 UTC): Adds that OSL and CrossTower have also suspended XRP trading.

Read more: An SEC Victory in Ripple Case Would Render XRP ‘Untradeable,’ Market Pros Say

• Bitstamp to Halt XRP Trading, Deposits in US Due to SEC Lawsuit
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Stays in Tight Range but Gains Dominance as XRP Crumbles
• XRP Liquidations Soar as SEC Lawsuit, Token Airdrop Whipsaw Markets
• Coinbase, Other Big Exchanges ‘Between Rock and a Hard Place’ on Delisting XRP

The folks at Deribit apparently think betting on a $100,000 bitcoin (BTC) price is so earlier-this-month because on Friday, mere hours before the leading cryptocurrency hit $25,000 for the first time, the crypto derivatives exchange announced contracts on $120,000 BTC with $140,000 added on Saturday morning.

• A week ago last Thursday, Deribit made waves in the cryptocurrency industry by introducing call and put options at the $100,000 strike price expiring on Sept. 24, 2021.
• The purchase of a $100,000 call is a bet that bitcoin will rise above that level on or before Sept. 24, 2021, making the option “in-the-money.”
• When those options went live, BTC was in the midst of a stunning run into uncharted territory past $20,000, setting a then-record high of $23,770 on the day those $100,000 options went live.
• Since then, after a brief pause, BTC has resumed its rallying ways, hitting $25,000 for the first time late Christmas Day and at time of writing is trading at $25,716.52, up 6.11% in the last 24 hours.
• It’s not clear when these new calls and puts expire.

UPDATE (Dec. 26, 16:37 UTC): Adds information on $140,000 option.

• Deribit’s New Options Allow Bitcoin Traders to Bet on Rally to $100K
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Tests $19.5K; Ether Options Interest in Doldrums
• Bitcoin’s Options Market Skews Bearish as Spot Price Loses Ground
• How One Bitcoin Options Trader Turned $638K Into $4.4M in 5 Weeks