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Today's top reads

1. Battling for custody
2. Libra’s crypto baggage
3. Litecoin’s halving trade
4. Bitcoin activity peaks

This week's poll: Have you ever mined cryptocurrencies before?
Click to answer:
Yes!
Nope!

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Market update

1. Battling for custody

The battleground is heating up. This last week, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong revealed that Coinbase Custody - the exchange’s regulated custody service - now has over $1 billion assets under management and is set to break $2 billion soon.

It’s a major milestone. Although the service launched just 12 months ago, Armstrong notes that it’s adding about $150 million each month. Still, despite its newfound success, here’s how Coinbase stacks up against the rest of the industry:

Self-Reported Assets Under Management for Leading Crypto Custodians (in millions)

But regardless of market share, it's a good place to be. According to a report earlier this month, the crypto asset management market is set to grow at a +16% compound annual growth rate through 2023.

That makes sense. According to a survey from Fidelity, only 22% of institutional investors currently own digital assets with 47% responding that they see a place for digital assets in their portfolio.

The bottom line: Crypto custody is a strong market to be in. Inevitably, as the crypto markets mature and institutions step into the space, asset security will only become more important.

2. Libra’s crypto baggage

The cat is out of the bag. This week, The Block unveiled Facebook’s new partners for its upcoming Libra cryptocurrency that is set to be announced tomorrow. It’s quite the list.

While we’ll save the entire 28-company list for you to see for yourself, there are definitely some interesting partners. And by interesting, we mean “anti-crypto” interesting. Here are a few partners that have previously sworn off crypto in the past:

• Mastercard and Visa. The massive payment processors instituted a blanket ban on crypto in 2018 after classifying the industry as high-risk. To make matters worse, Ajaypal Singh Banga, Mastercard’s CEO, called cryptocurrency “junk” and explained that it doesn’t deserve to be a medium of exchange.
• MercadoLibre. While the South American e-commerce giant had once accepted crypto listings, it has recently banned them from its platform following a $750 million strategic investment from online payment portal PayPal.
• PayPal and Stripe. Both PayPal and Stripe have discontinued efforts to accept bitcoin citing low merchant use and high volatility as reasons to quit.

Now, however, with a stance to profit (and take control) of a cryptocurrency network, Facebook’s new partners seem to be having a change of heart about digital assets.

But that doesn’t bode well with the crypto community. Already, major crypto news site CryptoBriefing has published an open letter to reject Libra claiming that “decentralization is a cause, not a buzzword.”

Look at it like this: These companies will take any public stance to keep crypto from taking over traditional banking, but when it comes time to put their money where their mouth is: they're hedging their bets. Crypto may just be too useful to ignore.

3. Litecoin’s halving trade

The countdown is on. Just yesterday we passed the 50-day mark until litecoin completes its halving, a.k.a. when the altcoin’s mining reward will drop from 25 to 12.5 coins per block.

It’s a big reminder of scarcity. And also why litecoin has rallied over +340% since the start of the year. But the party might end soon.

Here’s why: In 2015, litecoin endured its first (and only) halving since its founding in 2011. At that time, litecoin followed a similar trend and traded up over +500%. That was great, however, just under 50 days until the event, litecoin peaked and started a downward trend that would result in a 70% correction.

So what’s the move? While history could repeat itself, the trade is based on only one halving event which is hardly a trend to make a decision off of. Not just that, but we are also seeing strong signs of an incoming bull market - the real threat to shorts.

4. Bitcoin activity peaks

According to CoinMetrics, bitcoin activity has just passed 1 million active addresses for the first time since November 27th, 2017.

Per Kevin Rooke on Twitter, the last time bitcoin reached this milestone the cryptocurrency sat at $9,352 with a median transaction fee of $3.23. It’s now back over $9,000 with a median transaction fee of $1.33.

For bitcoin supporters, it’s a good look. It means there’s actual use in the network. Whether or not those transactions are simply trading, though, rather than merchant transactions, is another argument.

5. You should also know

• Binance announced it will be ending support for U.S. consumers in September, however, it will be creating a new exchange to serve the country's userbase.
• Bitfinex has started to buy back and "burn" its LEO exchange token.
• Bakkt has revealed its bitcoin futures contract details prior to its July test date.

6. 59% avoid trading

From last week's poll, 59% of respondents claimed that they don't consider themselves traders.

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