Bitcoin passes $41,000

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The Blends Briefs
TL’DR: Here’s a sneak peek into today’s newsletter

• Bitcoin passes $41,000

• Aqua shuts down

• Crypto.com secures EMI authorization in the UK

• DigiFT wins regulatory approvals from Singapore

• El Salvador profits from Bitcoin

• AMM Mechanism

Global Biscuits

Bitcoin passes $41,000.
Bitcoin's price has surged past $41,700, rising 5.6% in a day and over 11% in a week. The cryptocurrency's rally is attributed to renewed optimism about the potential approval of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In the past 24 hours, over $166 million in short derivatives positions have been liquidated due to Bitcoin's price movement. The SEC has been meeting with ETF applicants, including Grayscale and BlackRock, and analysts have identified key dates in January when multiple applications could potentially be approved.

Aqua shuts down.
Aqua, the gaming NFT marketplace, has officially shut down, according to an announcement by CEO Sean Ryan. The decision to close the platform was made due to the slow growth of the Web3 gaming market, preventing Aqua from scaling to a mass-market size within a reasonable timeframe. Ryan mentioned that despite some successes, the broader crypto-gaming market experienced slower-than-expected growth, making it challenging for Aqua to raise funds. The platform, launched in 2022, aimed to provide a player-focused NFT gaming marketplace and embedded solutions for game developers, supporting NFTs on Ethereum, Polygon, and Immutable X.

Tastes of the regions

Crypto.com secures EMI authorization in the UK.
Crypto.com has obtained authorization as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom. This EMI license allows Crypto.com to broaden its product offering in the country, enabling the platform to issue and manage electronic money and provide a wider range of financial services. This move followed Crypto.com's registration as a cryptoasset business with the FCA in August 2022, and it joins other crypto firms like Coinbase and Gemini in obtaining an EMI license in the UK. Crypto.com aims to offer a suite of UK-localized e-money products with this new authorization.

DigiFT wins regulatory approvals from Singapore.
DigiFT, a digital assets exchange based in Singapore, has obtained regulatory approvals from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). The exchange has been granted a Capital Markets Services (CMS) license and a Recognised Market Operator (RMO) license. DigiFT is notable for being the first exchange with an automatic market-making (AMM) mechanism to be admitted into the MAS FinTech Regulatory Sandbox. The exchange aims to provide secondary trading liquidity for security tokens backed by real-world assets on the Ethereum blockchain. DigiFT went through an 18-month process, including participation in the regulatory sandbox, to secure the licenses.

El Salvador profits from Bitcoin.
The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, stated on the X platform that the country's Bitcoin investment is now profitable by more than $3 million, following Bitcoin's rally to the $42,000 area over the weekend. Despite the fluctuations in the price, Bukele mentioned that the country has no intention of selling its Bitcoin holdings, as it aligns with their long-term strategy. Earlier statements estimated that El Salvador owned around 2,744 bitcoins at an average price slightly below $42,000, with a loss of about $16 million, but the recent price increase has turned the investment into a profit.

Dictionomics: AMM Mechanism 

An AMM mechanism, or automated market maker mechanism, is a type of decentralized exchange protocol that relies on a mathematical formula to price assets. Instead of using an order book like traditional exchanges, an AMM mechanism pools liquidity from users and allows them to trade against the pool. The pool's price is determined by the ratio of the assets in the pool, which is adjusted according to the formula every time a trade occurs. The formula also charges a fee for each trade, which is distributed to the liquidity providers as a reward.

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