The Daily: IMF urges El Salvador to limit scope of bitcoin law, HBO documentary claims to unveil Satoshi's identity and more

It's Friday! In today's newsletter, the IMF again urges El Salvador to limit the scope of its bitcoin law, TeraWulf sells its stake in a nuclear-powered bitcoin mine to fund its AI expansion plans, Hyperliquid tops decentralized perpetual swap trading volume and more.

Let's get started.

IMF urges El Salvador to limit scope of bitcoin law

The International Monetary Fund is again urging El Salvador to narrow the scope of its bitcoin law and limit public sector exposure to the cryptocurrency.

• The IMF seeks to reach an agreement with Salvadoran authorities on a program for macroeconomic stabilization and growth reforms.
• "Addressing risks arising from bitcoin is a key element of these discussions," IMF director of communications Julie Kozack said.
• El Salvador's so-called bitcoin law took effect in September 2021, making it the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, with the government later creating a national bitcoin stockpile.
• In August this year, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele acknowledged the monetary experiment has had mixed results but said it remains a "net positive" for the country."While many of the risks have not yet materialized, there is joint recognition that further
• efforts are needed to enhance transparency and mitigate potential fiscal and financial stability risks from the bitcoin project," the IMF said at the time. "Additional discussions in this and other key areas remain necessary."
• However, the IMF has also acknowledged that El Salvador's economy is set to grow by 3% in 2024, which is higher than the 2% growth projected for Latin America and the Caribbean.

TeraWulf sells stake in nuclear-powered bitcoin mine to fund AI expansion plans

TeraWulf has sold a 25% stake in its nuclear-powered Nautilus Cryptomine joint venture in Pennsylvania to a subsidiary of Talen Energy Corporation for approximately $92 million.

• The capital will be reinvested into expanding its Lake Mariner facility in New York, which focuses on hosting high-performance computing and AI data centers, in addition to bitcoin mining.
• The deal consists of $85 million in cash and approximately 30,000 Talen-contributed bitcoin miners and associated equipment valued at $7 million, resulting in a 3.4x return on TeraWulf's investment.
• While TeraWulf is among other miners such as IREN and Core Scientific increasingly diversifying into AI amid an explosion in demand, pure-play miners like CleanSpark and Riot argue the return on bitcoin mining's cheaper infrastructure and faster energization is far quicker than AI gestation periods.

Hyperliquid tops decentralized perpetual swap trading volume

Hyperliquid has risen to lead trading volume metrics among decentralized perpetual swap platforms , recently surpassing competitors like Jupiter, SynFutures and dYdX.

• Hyperliquid saw nearly $1.4 billion in volume on Thursday, ahead of Jupiter with $699 million, SynFututures at $556 million and dYdX at $331 million, according to DeFiLlama data.
• The increase may have been driven in part by the platform's points reward campaign, which will determine the distribution of the upcoming Hyperliquid token airdrop.
• Hyperliquid allows users to leverage trade perpetual derivatives by aggregating liquidity from various sources, with its custom-built low-latency trading engine and non-custodial structure making it appealing for high-frequency traders.

US spot Bitcoin ETFs see third straight day of outflows

U.S. spot Bitcoin BTC +2.57% ETFs saw $54.2 million in net outflows on Thursday, marking their third consecutive day of negative flows to start October, totaling more than $388 million.

• Ark Invest's ARKB led the outflows with $58 million exiting the fund, while BlackRock's IBIT registered the largest inflows of $36 million.
• Daily trading volume for spot Bitcoin ETFs fell to $1.1 billion from $1.7 billion on Wednesday, with cumulative net inflows since the funds launched in January now totaling $18.5 billion.
• Meanwhile, U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs saw net outflows of $3.2 million on Thursday, with Grayscale's ETHE leading the losses at $14.7 million, though BlackRock's ETHA generated $12.1 million in inflows.

New HBO documentary aims to reveal Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto's true identity

HBO's upcoming documentary "Money Electric" claims it will reveal the true identity of Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator , Satoshi Nakamoto.

• Galaxy Digital Head of Research Alex Thorn said he heard that the documentary will suggest Nakamoto may be the late cypherpunk Len Sassaman, a theory that first gained attention in 2021.
• The film, created by "Q: Into the Storm" director Cullen Hoback, promises a controversial conclusion and is set to release on Oct. 9.

Looking ahead to next week

• The latest U.S. FOMC meeting minutes are released on Wednesday. U.S. CPI inflation and jobless claims data follow on Thursday. UK GDP and U.S. PPI figures are due on Friday.
• The Future of Bitcoin Conference, Bitcoin Amsterdam, Crypto Fest 2024 and the World Blockchain Summit all get underway over the next seven days.

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