Just another normal day in the cryptoverse.
Hey, we’ve got some good news for those who invested in a crypto-fund helmed by a pair of South African brothers, aged 18 and 21: You have not lost $3.6 billion in bitcoin to an April hack, because there was never so much to lose.
“At the height of the market, we were managing just over $200 million,” [Raees] Cajee said…. Mr. Cajee said he and Ameer Cajee are in hiding because they have received death threats….
“We dealt with a lot of high-level South Africans, a lot of politicians, a lot of high-level businessmen within South Africa, as well as celebrities,” Raees Cajee said in the interview. “Some particularly very, very dangerous people—that we had not actually known were clients—have started to come out of the cracks.”
And, hey, we have even better news, albeit not for the brothers Cajee. You haven’t lost even that $200 million. By the standards of bitcoin breaches, you’ve lost the equivalent of nothing at all, although in real-world terms it’s still quite substantial.
He added that no more than $5 million is unaccounted for.
And maybe you’ll even see it someday.
Raees Cajee said that he and his brother plan to return to South Africa to attend a July 19 court date tied to the liquidation proceedings for Africrypt.
Obviously, good news like this should reassure the institutions and trigger a rally (in a way bad news never seems to do the opposite), and so it has!
Bitcoin prices rose for the second straight day in part due to news Morgan Stanley bought 28,289 shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust through its Europe Opportunity Fund…. Additionally, noted stock picker Cathie Wood's ARK Invest is entering the Bitcoin ETF race….
And, hey, wouldn’t you know that the Fed’s number two has something to say touching on that, although he uses it to draw a conclusion arguably favorable to the cryptoverse.
Citing America’s “susceptibility to boosterism and the fear of missing out,” Mr. Quarles warned that the nation has a habit of falling victim to a “mass suspension of our critical thinking and to occasionally impetuous, deluded crazes or fads.”
This man was appointed by Donald Trump.
He invoked the parachute pants of the 1980s as a parallel to the current currency craze, noting that sometimes fads are just silly…. Mr. Quarles said he does not want to prejudge the process, but he thinks there’s a “high bar” for central bank-issued digital money….
“In my judgment, we do not need to fear stablecoins,” Mr. Quarles said. He argued that the Fed has a history of fostering private sector innovation and “a global U.S. dollar stablecoin network could encourage use of the dollar by making cross-border payments faster and cheaper. And it potentially could be deployed much faster and with fewer downsides” than a central bank version.
Raees Cajee, Blamed by Investors for Billions of Dollars in Crypto Losses, Says Fraction Is Missing [WSJ]
Bitcoin price pierces $35,000, ETF race heats up [Fox Business]
A top Fed official says digital currency may be the money equivalent of parachute pants. [NYT]
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