Contents
Bitcoin surges above $50,000
Bitcoin prices rose above $50,000 in today’s trading session, as the SEC delayed approval of a BTC ETF product.
Many, including Bloomberg Analyst Eric Balchunas, believe that the chances of approval are close to 75%, despite the SEC opting to conduct further diligence before giving the green light.
News of this comes a week after the Chinese government formally banned all cryptocurrency products from the country.
💡 There’s a catch… According to Nate Geraci, ETF Store president, and Eric Balchunas, Bloomberg Intelligence senior ETF analyst. Investors shouldn’t get too excited because it will just be a future-based Bitcoin ETF. |
In the U.S. however, Analysts at Bank of America have stated that, “We believe crypto-based digital assets could form an entirely new asset class”, adding that “Bitcoin is important with a market value of ~$900bn, but the digital asset ecosystem is so much more”.
BTCUSD hit an intraday high of $50,346, its highest level in 4-weeks.
Shares in Facebook traded higher on Tuesday, as the company was able to iron out the issues which led to a global outage.
The company’s products, which include Instagram and WhatsApp were offline for several hours on Monday, with users across the globe unable to access these platforms.
However, today, the company’s VP of Infrastructure Santosh Janardhan stated that the outage was due to “configuration changes on the backbone routers”.
💡 Facebook is still facing crisis Recently, a former facebook employee, Frances Haugen told Congress that Facebook consistently chose to maximize its growth rather than implement safeguards on its platforms, just as it hid from the public and government officials internal research that illuminated the harms of Facebook products. |
Santosh went on to add that, “This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt”.
As of writing, shares in $FB were trading 2.03% higher.
Oil prices rally to 7-year high
On Tuesday, prices of WTI crude oil rose to its highest level in 7-years as OPEC opted no to increase output.
OPEC and its allies, which include Russia, decided in July to raise output by an additional 400,000 barrels per day, lasting till April 2022 at the very least.
This decision comes as the cartel has been under pressure to boost output, as demand for energies have risen in recent weeks.
💡 OPEC can influence world oil supplies and prices The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) can have a significant influence on oil prices by setting production targets for its members. OPEC includes countries with some of the world’s largest oil reserves. As of the end of 2018, OPEC members controlled about 72% of total world proved oil reserves, and in 2018, they accounted for 41% of total world crude oil production. |
Despite this, OPEC+ remained on course, with the cartel expecting short-term bottlenecks in the supply chain to soon give way.
WTI crude rose to an intraday high of $79.55, its highest level since October 2014.
“Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy.”
– Warren Buffet