As Asian trading begins, bitcoin maintains above $30,000 despite a minor drop, while Ether trades lower. For investors and others touching the technology world, AI is the latest shiny object. Is their fascination premature? Shaun Fernando, Chief Risk Officer at Deribit, told journalists in a note that bitcoin’s ‘max pain’ point, or a part of the market when option holders will experience the most financial loss, while option sellers can be the ones who profit the most, is currently at $26K, which should alleviate some of the downward pricing pressure after the coming options expiry. “With an impressive open interest of over $350 million at the 30K strike, the approaching quarterly expiration promises an exhilarating conclusion, carrying the potential for price turbulence amidst diverse gamma hedging strategies,” Fernando said.
Critics of the digital assets industry say it’s buzzword-laden and unsustainable, always chasing the next new trend without much thought to its sustainability. And for the most part, they are right. Over the weekend, 8btc, one of China’s first crypto publications, announced it was abandoning the field entirely and pivoting to primarily covering AI and the metaverse. Venture capitalists, seemingly bored of blockchain and crypto, have found a new interest in AI. PitchBook data shows that venture capital funding for crypto is down 80% in the first quarter of 2023, from $12.3 billion to $2.4 billion. PitchBook’s data also shows that AI startups raised $1.6 billion this quarter, and another $10 billion in deals have been announced but have yet to close.
For all the hype the AI bulls have for the technology, after putting it through its paces, AI is still somewhere between the peak of inflated expectations and trough of disillusionment on a hype cycle. Its slow, expensive, and 15-20% of what comes out of ChatGPT’s artificial mouth is a hallucination. Even at the height of blockchain mania, the prelude to the Covid bull market, there wasn’t the same fervor as there is with AI. One would think that given the disappointment of the enterprise blockchain bubble bursting, stakeholders would have learned their lesson about enthusiastically embracing new technology.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sought a freeze order despite no evidence that Binance was moving U.S. customer funds. Financial stewards including the International Monetary Fund and Bank for International Settlements say tokenization is the future. They’re wrong. Uniswap Labs CEO Hayden Adams shared his position that the U.S. lags behind on crypto regulation. BitGo CEO Mike Belshe addressed why the custodian terminated its acquisition of rival Prime Trust.