Crypto Market Overview October 4th | Dex-Trade

Bets Are On: Tobias Lutke Bought $3 Million Worth of Coinbase Shares in 2 Months

The CEO of e-commerce platform Shopify, Tobias Lütke, has been buying shares of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase weekly for an average of $369,000 per week over the past 60 days, accumulating a “stack” of securities worth about $3 million in this period in his investment portfolio. On August 11, the businessman purchased 3,930 shares of COIN at a price of $97.24 per unit. Five days later, he bought another 4,023 shares at $90.55. In total, he made approximately six purchases of several thousand Coinbase shares between August 11 and September 27. Thus, the securities of the crypto exchange, bought from August to October, expanded Lütke's COIN holdings to $4.28 million, since he acquired about $1.3 million of the company's shares from February to June 2022. The Shopify CEO currently sits on Coinbase's five-member board of directors. However, Shopify's leadership team began investing in the crypto space back in 2020, joining Facebook's infamous Meta's Libra Association (today known as Meta). How appropriate is it to invest in Coinbase now? The issue is debatable, since according to open data, interest in COIN has fallen significantly over the past year, and the share price has decreased by 73.47% over this period. Over the past 2 months, short interest in COIN has fluctuated around 25 million shares, which is approximately 17% of the total number of securities in circulation.

Kim Kardashian vs. SEC: Dubious Crypto Advertising Spoils Celebrity Karma

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused American TV show star Kim Kardashian of illegally promoting the EthereumMax (EMAX) cryptocurrency token on social media. As of October 3, Kardashian still hasn't disclosed the amount she received as payment for the promotion of the disputed token. However, the issue was partially settled by mutual agreement of the parties: the celebrity agreed to cooperate with the SEC investigations and paid $ 1.26 million in fines, seizure of illegally obtained money and interest. At the same time, Kardashian did not acknowledge or deny the allegations made against her. The penalties included approximately $260,000 in forfeiture and pre-judgment interest and a $1 million fine itself. The $250,000 forfeiture was determined by the SEC as the Kardashian star's fee for posting information about EMAX tokens on her Instagram. On top of that, the Kardashians are now banned from supporting any cryptocurrency projects for the next three years. This incident serves as a warning that if a celebrity or influencer recommends a financial product, including crypto-backed securities, and does not report the associated investment risks, they will be condemned. Well, or be able to agree, like Kim Kardashian.

$127,000 for a FEWOCiOUS Work Featuring the Legacy of David Bowie

An original NFT work by 19-year-old NFT artist FEWOCiOUS, an animated video clip paired with a more than 2m tall physical sculpture wearing one of Bowie's costumes from his archive, was sold on OpenSea for $127,000. The FEWOCiOUS Collectible NFT is part of the "Bowie on the Blockchain" collection launched by the David Bowie Estate in partnership with OpenSea. It includes 15 NFTs inspired by the legendary British musician and his colorful roles throughout his career. The sale of the collection started on September 30 and brought together the work of nine influential digital artists. According to an OpenSea press release, the collection embodies Bowie's legacy of reshaping musical performances, empowering digital communities, and supporting new technologies that Bowie had a lifelong interest in. Other NFTs from the collection have so far traded between 3 ETH ($4,000) and 7.5 ETH ($9,800) on average. The "silver prize" of the auction was the NFT work "The Stranger" by artist Defaced, which sold for 9.3ETH ($12,364). The collection will end on November 3rd, after which 100% of the proceeds will be donated to CARE, an organization dedicated to ending global poverty and hunger.