Bitcoin prices retreat, MicroStrategy’s Saylor sells $216 million in stock: CNBC Crypto World

CNBC Crypto World features the latest news and daily trading updates from the digital currency markets and provides viewers with a look at what’s ahead with high-profile interviews, explainers, and unique stories from the ever-changing crypto industry. On today’s show, Kain Warwick of Synthetix discusses his outlook for the Ethereum network in 2024.

Chapters:
00:00 – CNBC Crypto World, Jan 3, 2024
0:24 – Bitcoin prices retreat
1:56 – The headlines
4:46 – Kain Warwick of Synthetix

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Bitcoin prices retreat, MicroStrategy’s Saylor sells $216 million in stock: CNBC Crypto World

Today Bitcoin gives back some of its New Year’s gains micro strategies Michael sailor is selling nearly 216 million dollar worth of the company’s shares and Kane Warick of synthetics breaks down what to expect from ethereum in 2024 welcome to cnbc’s crypto world I’m Talia Kaplan bitcoin’s tumbling today

Giving back some of its gains from yesterday’s rally as of noon Eastern the price of Bitcoin dipped more than 5% dropping to the $43,000 level the move lower comes one day after the cryptocurrency surged more than 6% hitting the $45,000 Mark for the first time in nearly two years other

Cryptocurrencies including ether and salana also in the red today ether falling nearly 6% and salana sinking 99.5% dropping below the $100 Mark now the crypto declines follows nasdaq’s worst day since October as Traders pulled back from Texas stocks after they led the advance last year in crypto and

In traditional markets all eyes remain on the fed and potential rate Cuts during the fed’s last meeting in December officials opted to hold rates steady and suggested three rate Cuts in 2024 yesterday however Richmond Federal Reserve president Thomas Barkin warned that although he sees a soft Landing

Ahead rate hikes remain on the table as of noon Eastern Crypt focused stocks including coinbase and micro strategy were also in the red Bitcoin miners were a mixed bag with Marathon bucking the overall trend Rising 1% coinbase is coming off a nearly 10% drop yesterday experiencing its worst daily decline

Since June 2023 even as Bitcoin rallied to a 21-month high the crypto miners also failed to see gains from the Bitcoin rally reversing earlier moves higher closing the first trading session of the Year slightly in the red okay let’s talk about the top stories Michael sailor is selling nearly

$200 $6 Million worth of shares in micro strategy this filing from yesterday shows the 315,000 shares were acquired by stock options a micro strategy spokesperson did not get back to us right away but during the company’s Q3 earnings call sailor was asked about his intentions to exercise his stock options

And said that in 2014 he was granted a stock option of 400,000 shares which is set to expire in April he went on to explain that the money earned from the sale would be used to address some Financial Obligations as well as funds his own personal Bitcoin account micro

Strategy is the largest publicly traded holder of Bitcoin and last week it added more of the cryptocurrency to its portfolio putting the company’s Holdings at a value worth more than $8 billion the company stock soared nearly 350% in 2023 next Brian Kelly founder and CEO of digital currency investment firm BK

Asset Management says that we’re now experiencing the beginning of crypto’s next bull market speaking on cnbc’s Fast Money yesterday Kelly added that a lot of the speculative fever around Spa Bitcoin ETFs is likely reaching a crescendo this week he argued that a selloff would be a dip to buy because

There are still a lot of people that have not been able to include Bitcoin in their portfolios so even a 1 to 5% allocation in IRAs or from private wealth managers who will likely be buying the ETF over the course of the year will make a significant difference

In the cryptocurrency’s price Kelly also addressed the broader crypto market and discussed his outlook for altcoins 2024 when we talk about stocks we talk about the breath of the market and the breath widening it out to the mid and the small caps and that’s usually the sign of a

Healthy bull market we’re seeing that in crypto right now names like polka dot or Cosmos atams or even salano or some of these kind of and those aren’t second tier those are probably you know higher in the the first tier but you’re starting to see the rally broaden out

And most importantly you’re actually seeing from some of these cryptocurrencies actual things being built on them so we’re seeing de centralized exchanges getting a lot of activity uh we’re seeing decentralized lending and places in the defi space starting to get a lot of loans going out

There uh and a lot of total value locks so all these indicators are telling me that the bull market is broadening the fundamentals are supportive and I think we’re probably in the beginning of this 12 to 18mth bull market which should spread to the rest of the currencies all right let’s focus on

Ethereum for our main story the second largest blockchain Network had a major upgrade in 2023 and its token mounted a huge comeback in the months since then up more than 80% in the last 12 months so what’s next crypto world’s Jordan Smith spoke to Kane Warick of synthetics

Late last month to find out all right so let’s start with a look back at 2023 for ethereum we we had the Shanghai upgrade this year um we had that huge price recovery from the lows at the start of the year what was the big story for

Ethereum in 202 three to be honest I don’t think there was a big story for ethereum I think that’s you know part of what’s kind of going on uh with the most recent ethereum price action uh you know it’s ethereum has done everything that it said that it would over the last you

Know three four five years right um you know proof of stake has happened um you know l2s are happening uh everything is kind of set up for ethereum to really dominate um but there hasn’t been a huge Catalyst I would say this year it’s just been you know slow grind back up

Yeah that that slow grind you mentioned you mentioned you know layer twos and some of the other things that are working working in the background on ethereum and 2023 was was sort of touted as the year to build for developers and in crypto and web 3 and and how did that

Idea of heads down and build really translate into the network this year especially at a time when there’s been a Slowdown in trading volume and VC funding across the board I think we’re seeing a lot of things that were funded even over the last you know uh cycle say

From 20 20 20 2021 even into 2022 that are going live now um you know only at the end of the year um a lot of this Tech can take a long time to build and you know it can take a while for it to come to fruition um similarly with the

Overall ethereum road map you know the the kind of core technical upgrades have taken quite a while to to get to where they need to be um so I think that everything is positioned now for ethereum to really dominate next year um but you know throughout this year it

Really has been heads down building and you know a lot of people are scrambling even as we kind of round out the end of the year to get things live this year so that they’re ready to go for next year if we look ahead to 2024 JP Morgan

Recently put out a report that said ethereum would outperform Bitcoin in the new year thanks to proposed upgrades to reduce transaction costs and boost speeds do you agree with that sentiment that the upgrades that are coming are going to be such a boon for the ethereum network um even with you know hyper

Round spot Bitcoin ETFs here in the US or or the having that may drive interest in Bitcoin I think the interesting thing this cycle is that ethereum has now been the number two asset for you know other than like a brief blip where uh Ripple

Passed it for you know a few months in 2018 2019 about seven years it’s been the number two crypto asset right um and for good reason you know it has dominated transaction activity it’s dominated the narratives from nfts to decentralized finance uh and we now are sort of in this position where as

Bitcoin uh as it as it typically does at the start of a cycle as the Bitcoin dominance cycle starts to grow um what would typically happen is those Bitcoin profits would be rotated out into you know alternative assets right you know uh longer tale assets and ethereum was

Typically one of those but it feels to me like ethereum is now in a position where it has become so dominant that people are actually skipping over a theum and going to things like salana and you know even Layer Two scaling Solutions and you know longer retail

Assets more speculative assets um and so I think ethereum is kind of a victim of its own success in that regard a little bit because it has been so dominant for so long and and people don’t see the upside in it that said ethereum has a habit throughout you know a bull market

Of having these you know kind of crazy uh Catalyst weeks where um you know it can go five 10 15 20% up in a week and I do think we will see that in 2024 um but what the Catalyst will be we don’t necessarily know ahead of time

Yeah you you brought up some of the competition there and and I was actually going to ask you as part of my next question where the competition for ethereum stands as we head into 2024 you talked about salana I also think about polygon and some of the others how much

Trouble will they be for ethereum I I hate to call it trouble because they’re all working towards you know similar goals they’re all trying to build uh on their own respective networks but but how much competition will that be for ethereum as we head into 2024 or is it

Still poised to be the solid number number two compared to bitcoin so I think there’s two components there you know crypto is always a competition for attention right and at the moment Bitcoin is very much in the Limelight as you say due to ETFs and and you know the

Havening and and some of these things that are coming up some of these events that are coming up um and ethereum doesn’t necessarily have any like one Catalyst like that you know it has been this slow growth right um what has happened though over the last year is

There has been this consolidation around the ethereum ecosystem in terms of the layer to scaling right um that ethereum road map of ethereum Main net as the data layer and all of these other execution layers in the form of you know polygon arbitrum optimism Etc um you

Know we’ve we’ve seen even uh you know huge companies like coinbase using ethereum and optimism as their sort of foray into you know these uh onchain transactions and so that’s been a really powerful narrative that we’ve seen um what has also happened is some of the competing layers one networks the other

Networks that were taking attention away from ethereum have kind of pivoted to come back into the ecosystem and become l2s right um so cell is a great example of that um what that’s done I think has created a bit of a a power vacuum for salana to be this in credible threat and

So I think we will probably see this cycle salana get solidified as like the number three crypto asset where you’ll have you know Bitcoin then ethereum as the dominant you know smart contract platform but salana as this fast follower platform that will likely you know take up a lot of attention and uh

And you know um have a lot of activity happening in that ecosystem something that you just said goes right into my last question which was what do you see for institutional adoption of ethereum and you know institutions seem to be getting more and more interested in crypto once again for things like

Tokenization of real world assets and and so what’s ethereum’s role in that going forward and can It capture that attention versus some of its competitors I think it will and again you know I think this is what’s going to happen in terms of this slow grind up or you know

This slow growth um for ethereum there is no major Catalyst it’s just going to be constant adoption it is by far the dominant platform um and you know it’s the the dominant platform for a reason it has the best tech it has the best um you know Engineers it has you know the

Widest adoption and so I think that as an institution looking to do uh things with smart contracts ethereum is the obvious choice you know it’s becoming a little bit like you know the the old IBM Trope of you know no one ever got fired for choosing IBM right and and so

Choosing ethereum becomes just the obvious default Choice um that said you know I think salana and potentially some of the the other chains will have a chance to challenge ethereum um but for now you know it’s really going to be uh I think ethereum’s game to lose and then

The question is can ethereum do what the ethereum community has been predicting for very long time either next year or or you know the following year in the cycle which is flip Bitcoin because that would be the real catalyst is if ethereum is able to flip Bitcoin which

You know requires a four or 5x price appreciation relative to bitcoin that would extremely uh you know catalyze I think the the next couple of years of activity um and and shift The Narrative but it’s again you know that’s for ethereum to to kind of pull off okay that’s all for crypto world

Today but we’ll be back again tomorrow with a look back at last year’s Court hearings and trials against some of the biggest names in the industry we look forward to seeing you then