Bitcoin outperforms Nasdaq after U.S. economy grew less than projected in Q1: CNBC Crypto World

Today, Bitcoin outperformed stocks after data reveals the economy grew less than projected. The DOJ announces 2 separate Crypto enforcement actions. And in an exclusive on camera interview, Anchorage Digital CEO explains the platform’s new crypto settlement network. Welcome to CNBC’s crypto world. I’m Talia Kaplan, major cryptocurrency slightly in the red following the release of data this morning showing that economic growth in the US slowed in early 2024. Gross domestic product, a broad measure of goods and services produced between January and March, rose at a 1.6% annualized pace, lower than Wall Street’s estimate of 2.4% growth. As of noon. Eastern Bitcoin fell less than 1%, holding above $64,000. Ether dipped less than half a percent as both crypto currencies outperformed the stock market as of noon, with the Dow and tech heavy NASDAQ both falling 1 1/2 percent. Solana, however, dropped more substantially, nearly 2 1/2 percent. OK, let’s talk about the top stories. The Department of Justice announced enforcement actions in two separate cases in New York. The Southern District of New York announced the arrest of two people behind the crypto mixer Samurai Wallet. In a joint effort between the IRS and FBI. Samurai CEO and CTO are accused of transacting more than $2 billion as an unlicensed money transmitter. Officials also claimed the two were involved in laundering more than $100 million worth of transactions from dark web markets, including Silk Road. At the same time, the Eastern District of New York announced the sentencing of an Instagram influencer, Jabara Igbara, for fraud schemes that involve crypto currencies. The influencer, who goes by Jay Mazzini, was sentenced to seven years in prison. He ran a Ponzi scheme targeting Muslim Americans and raised money by deceiving victims into giving up their crypto holdings. He claimed he was actually buying it from them at a premium. Next, California Congresswoman Maxine Waters says she thinks the country could soon see stable coin regulation. The top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee told Bloomberg yesterday that she believes we are, quote, on our way to getting a stable coin bill in the short run. In the interview, she mentioned that many entities have weighed in on stable coin regulation, including Federal Reserve Banks, the Treasury Department, and the White House. She says a top priority is protecting investors by making sure companies have the assets to back up stable coins. Now Senators Kristen Gillibrand and Cynthia Lamas introduced a new stable coin bill last week aimed at creating a regulatory framework for stable coins, including mandating A1 to 1 reserve, banning algorithmic stable coins, and complying with US anti money laundering and sanctions rules. Last, Anchorage Digital just introduced a new global crypto settlement service. The Regulated Crypto Platform announced its new settlement network called Atlas, short for Anchorage Digital Trusted Liquidity and Settlement. Anchorage says it’s designed to settle both U.S. dollars and digital assets. Atlas was built for institutional counterparties and enables different kinds of settlements, including over the counter and off exchange settlement. According to Anchorage, Atlas is the only settlement network offered by a federally Chartered Bank. The company says that since it’s early access launch earlier this year, Atlas has already settled hundreds of millions of dollars in digital assets. The new network provides direct settlement on a blockchain between wallets rather than relying on intermediaries. The service is also supposed to be faster and more secure than traditional ways of moving funds for our main story. In an exclusive on camera interview, Crypto World’s Tanaya Mckeel spoke with Nathan McCauley, Anchorage Digital’s Co founder and CEO, about the new crypto settlement network. Anchorage Digital is launching Atlas that’s a settlement product for both digital assets and U.S. dollars. Talk to me about why you’re choosing to launch this settlement network. So Alice is a groundbreaking new settlement network that is here to really solve all the settlement needs for institutional counterparties. Anybody who wants to participate in the digital asset ecosystem wants to be able to settle assets safely and securely and between the counterparties. And what we found is that there’s no good option on the market that provides everything that’s the institutions of the world need, safe, regulated, reliable settlement infrastructure or something that’s really we think will catalyze a new era of adoption for digital assets. And we’re looking to bring that forward with Atlas. Where do you think that this product fits into the banking system right now? Is your goal to take on something like Swift, for instance? Or is this seen more as a replacement for things like Signature and Silvergate, which of course were shut down during the banking terminal turmoil last year? But both of those institutions provided huge amounts of liquidity for crypto focused institutions, Sure. So what’s interesting here is that there’s not not necessarily a direct parallel between something like Swift or something like Signature or or Silvergate. What’s really needed within the digital asset ecosystem is safe settlement of crypto and safe movement of crypto within the within the ecosystem. And so a big part of what we’ve heard from our clients from institutions is that they want to have reliable settlement of Bitcoin, reliable settlement of Etherium and other assets that they’d like to trade. And so while our, our, our system will support dollars and we are looking forward to supporting dollars, this is really kind of a a net new development in the in the ecosystem really encompassing both the crypto legs and the the dollar legs of transactions. How, how are you thinking about regulation of Atlas? Obviously Anchorage is federally chartered, but there’s uncertainty around crypto regulation here in the US Does that create any uncertainty around this project and have you guys been in touch with regulators? Not at all. So on our on our side, we’ve we’ve absolutely been in touch with regulators across the board. In fact, our National Bank charter specifically calls out that one of the activities that is allowed within Anchorage Digital Bank is the settlement of transactions. That’s what we’ve done with Atlas is taken that clear regulatory position that we have in order to settle, settle assets for institutions and applied a set of features on top that make that safer, easier to find your counterparties and easier to just reliably know that you are interacting with the the folks that you want to be interacting with. So in terms of regulatory clarity, there are there are many areas within the the crypto ecosystem that may have some regulatory uncertainty settlement of assets undeniably very clear regulatory approval to participate in that in that. And so this is, this is an area where it’s pretty cut and dry and going to be helpful to look at safe settlement in a new way and and really kind of apply the same kinds of security, safety and regulatory clarity that we take from the Anchorage Digital Bank custody business and apply that into the the settlement ecosystem. Well, let’s talk about the rest of your business. So looking more broadly, you know things have been doing well in crypto looking at the Bitcoin price alone. So how has that boost in activity across the market affected your business and how are you thinking about the state of crypto right now with the new adoption from Wall Street? Yeah, it’s been, it’s been a great year for crypto. Certainly the the overall over current of the the crypto markets has been a very positive not just on the on the price side but also on adoption side where we’re seeing really kind of a a global movement towards exchange, exchange traded products. Some of that starting here within the US but then also that’s looking like it’s going to happen the globe over. There’s also a lot of positive sentiments among not just the the top coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, but others. Some of the innovations happening there around social use cases, decentralized finance use cases where we’re we’re seeing a lot of innovation and just overall optimism in the market. This has all been very good for Anchorage. Anchorage is at all time highs in terms of all of our business metrics, assets under custody recently crossing over 50 billion. We’ve done so far in in Atlas, our the exchange settlement product that we’re rolling out right now, already done hundreds of millions in volume on that and really kind of we at Anchorage of firing on all cylinders and the broader market is doing so as well. And you know, sticking with that, what’s your outlook for Anchorage Digital for the rest of the year? And you you just touched on some things, but what are some of the projects that you guys are more focused on, be it Atlas or otherwise? Yeah, several areas. So Atlas is going to be a big launch for us. We’re looking forward to onboarding more counterparties. We’ve got a lot of demand. There’s a kind of a waiting list of people looking to get into Atlas and and start settling safely within that, within that ecosystem. Beyond that we’re looking forward to several large token launches that will happen over the rest of the year. We really like to support the innovators in the space. So the new protocols that are launching are going to continue to see that adoption carry forward. And then of course as the as the institutional adoption continues to take hold and propagate, looking forward to adding more institutions as they as they come in, whether they’re coming in to participate in Bitcoin and purchasing of Bitcoin or other top assets or if they’re looking to diversify into others. We provide trading services, settlement services of we’ve talked about and of course our our bread and butter is the federally regulated custody services that we provide. OK, that’s all for Crypto World today, but we’ll be back again tomorrow and we’ll see you then.