The Daily: SpaceX moves $270 million worth of bitcoin, Coinbase acquires Cobie’s crypto investment platform Echo, and more

The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.

Happy Tuesday! Gold is on track for its biggest one-day slide in five years as traders appear to begin rotating into bitcoin.

In today’s newsletter, SpaceX moves $270 million worth of bitcoin in its first transfer since July, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said crypto is increasingly being “woven into the fabric of the payment and financial system,” Coinbase is buying crypto investment platform Echo for $375 million, and more.

Meanwhile, Tether hits 500 million users as stablecoin supply nears $182 billion.

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SpaceX moves $270 million worth of bitcoin in first transfer since July: Arkham

• SpaceX, the aerospace manufacturer founded by Elon Musk, moved approximately $268.5 million worth of bitcoin on Tuesday, marking its first crypto transaction since July 24, though the firm doesn’t appear to have sold coins.
• Analytics platform Arkham said this transfer of nearly 2,500 bitcoins is the first material change to the company’s total holdings since June 2022. SpaceX currently holds 11,509 BTC, worth $1.24 billion.
• While the purpose of this bitcoin movement has not yet been publicly disclosed, crypto analyst Aunt Ai (ai_9684xtpa) suggested the transfer may be part of a wallet reorganization as the company sometimes interacts with Coinbase Prime.
• In mid-2022, SpaceX reduced its BTC holdings by around 70% following the Terra-Luna meltdown in May and subsequent crypto market volatility.

Coinbase is buying crypto investment platform Echo for $375 million

• Coinbase struck a $375 million deal to buy Echo, the onchain investment platform founded by Crypto Twitter mainstay Jordan “Cobie” Fish, marking the exchange’s eighth purchase this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• The Echo founder said the onchain crowdfunding platform will remain a standalone unit under its current brand for now, but there are plans to integrate Echo’s public token sale product Sonar into Coinbase.
• Prior to announcing Coinbase’s latest cash-and-stock acqui-hire, CEO Brian Armstrong said the firm spent $25 million to purchase an NFT to revive the popular “UpOnly” podcast co-hosted by Cobie.
• Coinbase’s other notable acquisitions this year include Deribit and LiquiFi.

Waller signals Fed’s shift toward embracing crypto, proposes ‘skinny master account’ for payment innovators

• Distributed ledgers and crypto are increasingly being “woven into the fabric of the payment and financial systems,” Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller, a Trump appointee, said at the central bank’s Payments Innovation Conference on Monday.
• “I wanted to send a message that this is a new era for the Federal Reserve in payments,” Waller said, noting that DeFi will be “welcomed to the conversation on the future of payments in the United States … something that would have been unimaginable a few years ago.”
• Waller, one of seven members of the Board of Governors at the Fed, also said he asked the semi-private agency to look into creating “skinny master accounts” that could help crypto payments facilitators access the central bank.
• Over the past year, the central bank has withdrawn guidance on crypto and stablecoin activities that previously discouraged banks from participating in crypto markets.

Gold on track for biggest one-day slide in five years as Bitcoin draws rotation flows

• Spot gold prices fell more than 5.3% to $4,125 on Tuesday, putting it on track for its largest single-day decline in more than five years as traders took profits from the metal’s record run to an all-time high of $4,260 on Monday.
• The BTC/gold ratio has dropped roughly 30% since mid-August, marking its lowest level since April amid a prolonged stretch of gold outperformance.
• Bitcoin climbed back to the $113,800 level today after hitting an early-morning low beneath $108,000, with Horizon’s Head of Growth Joe Consorti calling it the “early stages of an aggressive catch-up trade.”
• Meanwhile, Bitwise researchers argue that even a modest rotation of gold into bitcoin could see outsized effects with a 2% shift alone enough to potentially lift bitcoin above $161,000.

Tether hits 500 million users as stablecoin supply nears $182 billion

• Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said Tuesday that the world’s largest stablecoin USDT now has more than 500 million users, calling it “likely the biggest financial inclusion achievement in history.”
• “Programmable money is the ultimate social network,” Ardoino said on X. “A peer-to-peer construct that transports both information and value.”
• Total supply for Tether’s USDT stablecoin is at nearly $182 billion, another record for the firm, according to The Block’s data.

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