Mornin’ Coinheads!

Feeling great for a Tuesday? That’s awesome! Keep it up! Motivational Phrases! Meaningless Platitudes!  Can’t you just feel the energy in the air?

Yeah… nah. Neither can we, because it’s not been a starry, starry night for crypto, compounding a softening 24 hours for the more visible assets on the market.

That’s largely because the Bitcoin bear has slumped below US$22k again, which is really harshing everyone’s mellow.

Bitcoin is down 4.3%, Ethereum is 7.51% lower, Ripple’s down 5.0%, Cardano’s down 6.8%, Solana’s down 9.5%, Doge is down… you get the idea.

The whole market is just like that relentlessly terrible Coldplay song Yellow. Except it’s red.

So grab yourself a Stockhead Mid-Morning Special (2 x macchiato, 1 x large latte, 1 x can of Coke and a Chokitos), and let’s get ready to grumble – this could get bumpy.

 

Smart Men in Fancy Suits think they can fix crypto

Prominent (which is business-speak for Enormously Wealthy) investment guru John Momtazee has announced that the company he co-founded is gearing up for a major foray into the crypto space.

Bloomberg is reporting that Momtazee is starting a group inside Moells & Co. to focus on global blockchain deals, and has shrugged off concerns over the ongoing freeze of the Crypto Winter, saying “any disruptive technology is going to have volatility”.

It’s a big buy-in during a huge dip by Moells, which under normal circumstances would signal that somebody’s super-serious quant wonk had identified a market floor, so this could turn out to be an interesting development to watch as it unfolds.

 

Another day, another crypto hack. Sigh…

Over at Decrypt, and the news is out about a very recent hack at Audius, which cost the Web3 music platform US$6.1 million.

The attacker managed to exploit a bug and raid the platform’s Ethereum-based ERC-20 AUDIO tokens, and push through a governance proposal that sent the entirety of the community token pool — around 18.6 million tokens — to an external Ethereum wallet.

If cybersec is your bag, this one’s worth a read – as is the company’s own post-mortem on how embarrassingly easy this heist looks like it was to pull off.

 

Meanwhile… CoinSpot is all about transparency, says CoinSpot

Aussie crypto exchange CoinSpot has put its pseudo-money where its mouth is, announcing that it’s the first Australian exchange to complete an external statutory financial audit – a process the company describes as “comprehensive and time-consuming”.

The aim of the audit was to show CoinSpot’s “unparalleled dedication” to uphold its “stringent standards”, and provide “the highest possible level of assurance” to its user base that it’s not taking any “unnecessary risks” with their hard-earned coins.

CoinSpot also says it received an “unqualified opinion from the independent auditor that the business’s financial position for the 2021 financial year was reported fairly and in accordance with the Australian Accounting Standards”.

Translation: Someone’s counted all the beans, and the books aren’t being cooked.

 

Genius-level marketing marries fast food and crypto

The US is gearing up for National Avocado Day on 31 July, and in the run-up to what is surely  an incredibly important event, the marketing gurus at Chipotle are urging customers to (wait for it…) buy the dip.

Chipotle says it will be giving 512 lucky winners cryptocurrency prizes which range in cash value from US$1,250 to US$35,000, which will make a nice change from giving its customers severe intestinal distress and copping a US$25 million fine for its efforts.

 

Crypto.com gets the all-important tick from Cyprus

The news out of crypto.com this morning is – surprise! – all about crypto.com. The exchange has announced that it has been given the tick of approval by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).

The approval means that Cypriot crypto enthusiasts can now buy, sell or hold coins, tokens and whatever slivers of Matt Damon’s shattered soul that haven’t already been sold.