Noted growth investor Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest has added more than 213,000 Coinbase (COIN) shares worth about $13 million to its ARK Innovation (ARRK) and Next Generation (ARKW) exchange-traded funds. The 181,972 shares added to ARKK appear to be ARK’s biggest single COIN purchase of 2023. Coinbase reported quarterly earnings that beat expectations earlier this week, but its stock slipped 1.4% on Wednesday as crypto assets experienced a broad pullback. The crypto exchange’s stock is up 82% year to date to $61.18, but down from its closing-day peak of $342 in November 2021.

CoinDesk archives

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has said a $1.02 billion deal by Binance’s U.S. wing to purchase assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital may be unlawful. Specifically, the redistribution of crypto assets to account holders – particularly Voyager’s VGX token – could amount to the sale of unregistered securities, according to the SEC. The sale of Voyager to Binance.US received almost universal approval from creditors on Wednesday, with 97% of them voting in favor of the deal.

Music streaming service Spotify may be dipping its toe into Web3 with a new pilot involving “token-enabled playlists,” allowing holders of non-fungible tokens to connect their wallets and listen to curated music. Spotify is offering this exclusively to token holders in the Fluf, Moonbirds, Kingship and Overlord communities for a three-month testing period. Spotify told CoinDesk that it "routinely conducts a number of tests in an effort to improve our user experience."

QCP Capital/TradingView

Despite bitcoin’s 47% year-to-date rally, a further bearish wave could still be on the cards, according to Singapore-based crypto options trader QCP Capital.

Analysis based on Elliott Wave theory, which was introduced by Ralph Nelson Elliott in 1938 in his book, "The Wave Principle," suggests that bitcoin is in a “bear breather," which could be followed by a further slide downward.

Elliott found that market trends form five waves. Waves 1, 3 and 5 are "impulse waves" representing the broader trend, while waves 2 and 4 are "retrace waves," representing a temporary "breather."

According to QCP, wave 1 started in November 2021 when bitcoin fell from its record high of $69,000 to $39,000 in January 2022. Wave 2 – the first “bear breather” – saw bitcoin recover to $48,000 in March 2022, while the crash to $15,480 throughout the rest of the year was wave 3.

Should this trend run its course, wave 5 could see bitcoin drop back to wave 3’s floor of $15,480, if not lower.

Source: The Kobeissi Letter

Over the past few months, CoinDesk has been developing a reward system for Consensus 2023 attendees to bring long-term value. We've partnered with Art Blocks Engine, TokenProof and Passage Protocol to launch the Consensus Multi-Year, Multi-Tiered NFT Ticket, coming on March 2. Learn more.