MicroStrategy buys another 3,000 bitcoin, total holdings now worth about $10.3B: CNBC Crypto World

today bitcoin's back above $53,000 micro strategy buys another 3,000 Bitcoin bringing the company's total Holdings to more than10 billion and Anthony georgiadis the co-founder of pastel breaks down VC Trends in crypto welcome to cnbc's crypto world I'm Jordan Smith crypto prices in the green to kick off the week with Bitcoin bouncing back above $53,000 as of new Eastern Bitcoin climb nearly 4% to $53,500 Ether held above $3,000 rising 3.75% and cardano soared more than 5% all right let's talk about the top stories micro strategy purchased another 3,000 Bitcoin tokens for $155 million the company's executive chairman Michael sailor made the announcement on X today writing that the Bitcoin was purchased at an average price of around $51,100 he also said that as of yesterday micro strategy which is the the largest corporate owner of Bitcoin holds 193,000 coins which was acquired for about $6 billion at an average price of around $31,500 per Bitcoin those Holdings are now worth more than $10.3 billion as of new Easter micr strategy shares traded Higher by nearly 14% meantime blockchain security company PC Shield is warning that Micro strategy's X account had been compromised in an apparent fishing exploit the attacker put a now deleted post on the company's X page that promoted a new coin those who clicked on it were directed to another website cryptos sluth Zack xbt said on X that the hacker was able to seal about $440,000 from the compromise we reached out to micro strategy but didn't hear back right away next crypto exchange bit Forex seems to have gone offline the Hong Kong based crypto exchanges website appears to be inactive and when trying to access the site a notice comes up saying sorry you have been blocked this comes after about $57 million was reportedly withdrawn from bit forex's hot Wallets on Friday Zack xbt posted on X this morning that the withdrawals have stopped processing and the bitforex team has been unresponsive to user requests on X and telegram the official bit Forex account did not post anything about the situation in January the former bit Forex CEO said he was stepping down from his role after six years at the crypto company and coindesk reports that bit Forex was one of four crypto exchanges flagged by Japanese Regulators last year for operating without proper registration last the US Department of energy agreed to temporarily halt its emergency survey of energy use by crypto miners after a lawsuit by Bitcoin minor Riot platforms and an industry group according to this court order from Friday the US Energy Information Administration or eia which is the doe statistical arm will suspend its mandatory survey for 1 month and sequester data it has already gathered from Bitcoin miners after starting the process earlier this month the day before Riot and the Texas blockchain council sued the Biden Administration seeking to block the survey and arguing the agency failed to allow proper public comment and that the survey could harm businesses by forcing them to disclose confidential and sensitive information the eia argues that the information is needed to assess concerns that the increased use of electricity by Crypt miners prompted by high Bitcoin prices could pose an imminent threat to energy grid reliability all right let's talk more about crypto markets for our main story I spoke with Anthony georgeadis the co-founder of the pastel Network to get his reaction to crypto's latest rally and I also asked him about the latest VC Trends after funding for crypto projects increased for the first time in 2 years let's start with the rally in crypto today Bitcoin jumping to $53,000 Ether up to 3,100 what should investors know about these recent movements in crypto and how much of this momentum that we've seen so far do you think is is still out there for these repeated gains that we've had this year definitely well you know when it comes to the price of Bitcoin and and the broader digital asset market right now there's a handful of variables at play um you know so first and foremost the crypto Market in general has been keeping a very close eye on obviously the broader monetary policy The fed's View Etc um we've seen a tremendous amount of surge in overall stocks obviously nvidia's earnings for example broader surgence across a variety of semiconductors are continuing to show broader strength in overall markets and we're also looking at key data points from an overall economic perspective like inflation whatnot and when you put this all together there is a lot of cementing of the fed's view that there will likely be a rate decrease in June July but potentially even in March or May so there's been a significant amount of risk on activity across broader markets digital assets in particular and then you take that in tandem with certain other events such as the Bitcoin having um as well as a variety of Bitcoin coin ETFs and then potentially as well some of the election bets that are taking place later this year and the bipartisan support that may be driving narratives towards overall regulatory Clarity for digital assets yeah I was going to ask you how much you thought that uh the crypto Market was really driven by this correlation with tech stocks that we've seen in previous years or if it's moving away from that but in your view we are still correlated with with tech stocks in some way but also macro pressures are really driving the crypto Market I want to talk about the comparison between ether and Bitcoin right now ether's outperforming Bitcoin by about 133% this morning so far this year um we've talked on the show about how much of that is to do with hope for spot ether ETFs coming sometime this year but is that all that's really driving this outperformance right now is there anything else you're seeing um that could explain the outperformance for ether compared to to bitcoin well you touched on a couple things right you mentioned the kind of correlation with tech asset assets and we are of a very strong opinion that over time that correlation is going to continue to break now Bitcoin and ether are two very very different types of assets you have one that participates more as a safe haven digital gold like asset in Bitcoin and then you have another which represents more of the world of web 3 digital native based economies technology businesses Etc uh they have very different underlying economic models Supply demand equilibriums you know obviously different fundamental protocol components that really drive both network activity as well as deflation mechanisms so to your point as we've seen more of this risk on narrative I do think that that is more beneficial for some of those native web fre currencies like ethereum those digital assets that are more predicated on both technology-based Innovations and businesses whereas we potentially seen a little bit more of that break and correlation where Bitcoin which while it does have those same characteristics and attributes it also has some of those other attributes that are more in line or akin to assets like gold oil Etc I want to also expand that conversation a little bit you're also the co-founder and general partner at innovating capital and and in context of talking about um the potential for Bitcoin or the comparisons between Bitcoin as a network versus ether as a network pitchbook also said in its report that uh Bitcoin layer 2s and and scaling solutions for bitcoin's Network are going to be a big Focus for this year do you agree with that and do you also think that takes away from some of the argument that they're very different assets if we're working to more closely Align bitcoin's Network with some of that that web three potential or some of those those other applications that ether may have yeah that's why I was careful to kind of say that you know they weren't completely disperate assets in that respect I think that what's happened with Bitcoin over the last couple of years you know if you look at Stacks or ordinal or things like that have completely changed part of The Narrative of Bitcoin as a long-term Bitcoin holder and and really believer in the broader Bitcoin Network itself it already has those characteristics of true decentralized money of true decentralized assets right it's the only asset in the world that is sufficiently decentralized with completely controlled Supply and deflationary mechanisms in place now you add on what we kind of view as a call option on bitcoin to potentially be looked at as both a replacement for certain Sovereign currencies but as well as some of those web three narrative drivers I mean over the last couple of months Bitcoin has had the largest amount of nft volume in trading activity versus comps like ethereum and salana I would have never have thought that a couple of years ago The Innovation that we've seen is is amazing and I'm super excited to see obviously a lot of that start to play out across both some of those scaling Solutions and really tangible business applications I think we'll continue to see that narrative drive and to your point you know bitcoin's overall characteristics and potential applications continues to grow let's end this conversation by talking about VC funding um we saw it tick higher for the first time for crypto in two years do you expect that momentum that Trend to continue this year and which types of projects are most attractive right now in the crypto space for finding funding definitely the VC industry is extremely um you know fascinating and interesting because there is typically a lot of what I would call self-fulfilling prophecy in certain aspects of it as well as key Market validating points you know so we saw obviously a massive Chase into the AI boom we saw cool off in web 3 when the web 3 Market was extremely down um obviously as we come off the backing of some of the collapses like three arrows and FTX we're seeing a lot more stability in the broader Market VCS are getting more comfortable re-entering the overall web 3 space and I think to your point The Narrative has really shifted where there's a lot more potential opportunities for Innovation whether that's really the sort of mergence of AI applications pastel for example is working on tools that offer decentralized llms across the broader web 3 environment then you also have areas for scaling Solutions you know such as those on bitcoin that we touched on so I think that there's a few key areas of both Innovation that have become more opportunistic such as obviously the world of AI L2 scaling Solutions and even some of those application specific l1s and then you obviously have the fact that the web 3 Market has seemed to found a much more stable foothold and the future outlook over the near term seems to be much more positive which has really led to this Resurgence and VC funding all right that's all for crypto world today we'll be back again tomorrow and we'll see you then

Channel: CNBC Television

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Keywords: crypto world, cryptocurrency, bitcoin, digital currency, CNBC, business news, finance stock, stock market, news channel, news station, breaking news, us news, world news, cable news, finance news, money, money tips, financial news, stock market news, stocks, crypto investing, crypto, crypto mining, bitcoin mining, crypto industry, ether, U.S. currency, U.S. economy, cryptocurrency news, Bitcoin, crypto world cnbc, blockchain, ftx, etf, ethereum, web3, Anthony Georgiades, pastel

Id: hlsEANxUnts

Length: 11min 19sec (679 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 26 2024