The crypto market is still “very unsure” about which crypto assets to back beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum, according to an executive. The average investor still hasn’t reached a clear consensus on which crypto assets beyond the top two warrant serious attention, according to Anthony Bassili, president of Coinbase Asset Management. “There’s a very, very clear view in the investor community in terms of the right first portfolio is Bitcoin. The next is Bitcoin, Ethereum,” Bassili said during an interview with Cointelegraph at The Bridge conference in New York City on Wednesday. Bassili pointed out that Solana (SOL) is “maybe” the third asset on the radar. “The market is very unsure as to what’s the next asset they want to own after that,” he said, adding that after Solana, there is a “very wide gap” with XRP (XRP). Read more
WisdomTree’s Will Peck said that crypto index ETFs will solve the need for those who don’t want to take on “idiosyncratic risk.” WisdomTree’s head of digital assets, Will Peck, anticipates that exchange-traded funds (ETF) that hold diversified baskets of cryptocurrencies will fill a significant gap in the market in the coming years. “It does seem like that’s going to be one of the next waves of adoption,” Peck told Cointelegraph at The Bridge conference in New York City on Wednesday. “It solves a need, I think,” he added. Peck explained that although many new investors now understand the concept of Bitcoin (BTC), they often struggle to judge the “next 20 range of assets.” He said a multi-asset crypto basket provides them with exposure to the sector while mitigating the “idiosyncratic risk” of investing in individual tokens. Read more
Strategy chairman Michael Saylor denies reports of Bitcoin sell-offs, Canary Capital’s XRP ETF had a strong debut: Hodler’s Digest Michael Saylor, executive chair of Strategy, denied reports that the company was offloading some of its Bitcoin amid a flash crash in the cryptocurrencys price. In a Friday X post, Saylor said that there was no truth to a report claiming that Strategy reduced its overall Bitcoin holdings by about 47,000 BTC, or $4.6 billion at the time of publication. Saylor said the company was continuing to buy Bitcoin as the price dropped by more than 4% in less than 24 hours, from more than $100,000 to less than $95,000. I think the volatility comes with the territory, said Saylor in a Friday CNBC interview. If youre going to be a Bitcoin investor, you need a four-year time horizon and you need to be prepared to handle the volatility in this market. Read more
Steak 'n Shake, an American fast food restaurant company, first began accepting BTC in May and is now expanding its stores to El Salvador. Steak ‘n Shake, a fast food restaurant company in the United States that accepts Bitcoin (BTC), announced on Saturday that it is expanding into El Salvador. “We were honored to be in Bitcoin Country,” the company said in an X post following Steak ‘n Shake's participation in the country’s Bitcoin Histórico event on Wednesday and Thursday. Steak ‘n Shake started accepting BTC for payment at its stores in May, and the company’s chief operations officer, Dan Edwards, told Cointelegraph that the goal is to have BTC accepted at all of the company’s locations worldwide. Read more
Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley took a contrarian view to the prevailing crypto investor sentiment, which dropped to a six-month low on Saturday. The crypto market’s long-term fundamentals look promising, despite the shakeup in October and November that has left asset prices down and investor sentiment to crater, according to Hunter Horsley, CEO of investment firm Bitwise. Horsley said the four-year market cycle is dead, replaced by a more mature market structure and changed dynamics due to the pro-crypto regulatory pivot in the US. He said in a Friday X post: I think there's a pretty good chance that we've been in a bear market for almost 6 months now and are almost through it. The setup for crypto right now has never been stronger,” Horsely added. Read more
Crypto treasury companies and blockchain technology are creating alternative pathways to fund early-stage scientific and medical research. Biomedical and scientific companies are turning to blockchain technology and crypto treasury strategies to fund research, overhauling traditional capital formation and research funding structures that can delay life-saving cures by decades. Portage Biotech, a biomedical technology company, pivoted to become a Toncoin (TON) treasury company in September, earning operating revenues from staking to secure the network and investing in Telegram ecosystem projects, including games and mini-apps. The company will funnel some of the revenue generated from the operating business and the capital appreciation of TON to fund cancer research, AlphaTON CEO Brittany Kaiser told Cointelegraph. Read more