Bitcoin Daily: Tether May Have Propped Up Bitcoin, Coinbase Rolls Out Crypto Index Fund

Bitcoin Daily

Coinbase’s crypto index fund is now available to investors in the U.S., but there’s a slight restriction: Only accredited investors can participate, TechCrunch reported. The crypto exchange is now looking for those seeking to invest anywhere from $250,000 to $20 million. Already, the company has seen “overwhelming” interest in the fund.

Coinbase Index Fund gives investors exposure to all assets listed on our exchange, weighted by market capitalization,” Coinbase Asset Management Product Lead Reuben Bramanathan wrote in a blog post on Coinbase’s website. “As we announced yesterday, the fund will be rebalanced to include Ethereum Classic, and more assets when they are listed by Coinbase in the future.”

And university researchers have noticed an interesting trend when it came to an atmospheric jump in the price of bitcoin last year: They found that about half of bitcoin price increases happened after another cryptocurrency, Tether, flowed from one crypto exchange – Bitfinex – to other exchanges.

“It was creating price support for bitcoin, and over the period that we examined, had huge price effects,” University of Texas Professor John Griffin told CNBC. “Our research would indicate that there are sophisticated people harnessing investor interest for their benefit.”

In other news, India’s central bank disclosed in a right to information (RTI) request that it did not look to experts or conduct research before placing restrictions on cryptocurrencies, The Next Web reported. Varun Sethi, a lawyer who filed the request, was not happy with the response.

“A restriction of this magnitude should have [been] backed by expert opinion and research,” Sethi told TNW. “We are already drafting the next steps — appeal under RTI and separately a case under Banking Regulation Act for a face-to-face representation ​with RBI [Reserve Bank of India] in this matter.”

And finder.com.au has lowered its bitcoin forecast, Business Insider reported. The site now predicts that bitcoin can hit $14,322 by the end of December, but it had previously forecasted in January that the digital currency could hit $32,870.