Today Bitcoin recovers from an overnight Selloff that pushed the cryptocurrency Below $56,000 polygon kickstarts its migration From the maic token to the new pole Token and Sam holen of CMT digital Breaks down what crypto sectors are Getting the most attention from venture Capitalist welcome to cnbc's crypto World I'm Talia Kaplan crypto markets Are stabilizing from an overnight Selloff that briefly pushed Bitcoin Below $56,000 by noon Eastern the Cryptocurrency traded up about 3/4 of 1% To $58,700 Meanwhile ether gained about half of 1% And Ripple's xrp token fell slightly Trading at 56 cents following reports of The issuance of a ripple US dollar Backed stable coin in the coming weeks Taking a quick look at Bitcoin mining Stocks they're on the rise as of midday Even after a report from JP Morgan found That Bitcoin miners faced record low Mining revenues averaging around $43,500 Per ex aash a second by noon Eastern W And core scientific were among the Strongest performers up 2.8% and around 6.2% respectively Marathon inched about A tenth of a percent higher while clean Spark gained about a quarter of 1% after Falling sharply the day before following
The release of its mining update for August which showed that the company Mined less Bitcoins last month compared To the month Before okay let's talk about the top Stories polygon's migration away from Madic and toward a brand new crypto Token is underway the blockchain scaling Solution has rolled out a network Upgrade to convert madic tokens to pole Tokens pole will now be the native token For gas and staking for polygon's POS or Proof of stake system if you use the POS System you don't have to do anything to Convert your madic to pole but if you Hold madic on the ethereum network Centralized exchange or some other Networks polygon says the upgrade will Enable holders of that crypto to convert Those mic tokens now polygon says the Shift to poll will help bring needed Upgrades and prepare for future updates For the network like zero knowledge Proof generation as of noon Eastern the Poll token dropped more than 7% next two Members of the Trump family appear to Have fallen prey to a hack that promoted Crypto schemes on X the account Belonging to Laura Trump Donald Trump's Daughter-in-law shared post declaring The launch of the family's crypto Platform World Liberty Financial this is A project that has been promoted by Donald Trump and members of the family
The account then shared links claiming Affiliation with the platform an Endorsement and Link was then shared on Tiffany Trump's xac she's the youngest Daughter of the former president shortly After Laura Trump's post her husband Eric Trump who is the son of the former President shared that it was a scam and That Laura and Tiffany's profiles have Been compromised all posts related to The hack have since been deleted now This comes a week after the Republican Presidential nominee teased a roll out Of a crypto plan the Trump organization Has promoted crypto products in recent Weeks of course including World Liberty Financial as well as a new nft Collection now CNBC reached out to Spokespeople for the Trump presidential Campaign and the Trump organization About the hacks but didn't hear back Right away last new data from the Federal Trade Commission shows a surge In losses from scams involving Bitcoin Btms also known as btms now the agency Estimates $66 million lost to BTM fraud Through June of this year adding to the Already growing Trend over prior years Last year's figure is estimated at $114 Million following 78 million in 2022 the FTC says these figures likely only Represent a fraction of losses as the Vast majority of fraud goes unreported In the first half of this year the
Median reported individual loss was $10,000 now the agency says cases often Start with scammers impersonating Companies like Microsoft or apple that Scammers even refer to btms as safety Lockers the agency warns that people Should double check with companies or Agencies if they receive unexpected Calls and messages and encourages people Not to believe anyone who directs them To a Bitcoin ATM to resolve an Issue all right turning to crypto Venture Capital trends for our main Story I spoke with Sam Hal investment Partner at the trading and VC firm CMT Digital about what's getting the most Investment dollars right now and whether AI is pulling some money away from Blockchain Investments CMT digital is a global Blockchain and web 3 VC firm and so I'm Curious to get your firsthand Observations on the space according to Defi Lama data Venture Capital funds Invested $634 million in crypto startups In July that's up 15% from the month Before now last month pitchbook released Its Q2 crypto report revealing that deal Count dropped in the quarter but the Total deal value ticked up to $2.7 Billion which pretty much shows that on A deal by deal basis check sizes were Larger however pitchbooks q1 report Showed an increase in both deal value
And deal count so what do those Q2 Results signal to you and what are you Noticing in terms of VC Investments Right now yeah absolutely I mean step Back and and and say that we're a Generalist investment firm in the Blockchain and digital assets space um We like to be early to Investments we Like to invest uh before categories are Are named and I think what we're seeing A lot of right now is um because of the Maturation of the technology stack in The blockchain and digital assets space Um there are just an abundance of of of New use cases for for this technology Coming on online and there's growth Behind These use cases that's that's Being fueled um and so that's why you May see larger checks going to fuel Growth as opposed to um you know a new Idea at Inception and that's very exciting um And very affirming for for the Space so where is VC Capital going right Now what crypto projects are getting the Most attention pitchbook crypto analyst Robert lay told me infrastructure deals Continue to to get a significant amount Of the money including layer one and Layer Two scaling Solutions he said Applications haven't been gaining that Much traction as of yet but pitchbook Expects applications to be the next wave Of Investments that will come within the
Next 12 to 18 months do you agree and Are you seeing the same thing I would Agree with that I think that uh for the First time I feel confident saying um That the infrastructure stack now there Will there will always be upgrades to be Had in in infrastructure and and we see This um in in web 2 software this trend Will repeat and there will always be Marginal improvements to be made but I Think we're at a place where you can Build real uh you know kind of feature Parody applications to to web two on the Web 3 stack and that's extremely Exciting um for for what the future Holds for us we're not so much looking At the next layer one block chain we Will look at a net new blockchain if That blockchain presents a new a net new Um use case um so you know something Like permanent storage um as opposed to A Smart contract blockchain say in the 2017 era you know would have been Something that we look at um something Uh you know today that that we're Looking at are are uh things in in the Uh dpin sectors um so so using Blockchains as a me mechanism to Coordinate the deployment of physical Hardware uh at scale and really aiming To collapse the cost of some of these Base level um services that we take for Granted um such as you know cellular or Or or really Wi-Fi um that's an area
That's got us extremely excited um I Think that we're going to see the same Thing in in payments um and we are Seeing that the CMT digital has three Funds to date and is currently in its Fourth fund targeting $150 million as You're raising for the fourth fund and Are in conversations with limited Partners you note that ETFs represent a Quote bullish signal to invest in crypto Funds and that the products present the Perfect opportunity to get retail and Institutional investors looped into Crypto can you elaborate on that how do You think the approval and launch of Spot crypto ETFs here in the US changed Investor appetite Yeah I think that this is the this is a Major stamp of legitimization for the Blockchain and and and digital assets um Space I think that once you fall down The rabbit hole of of Bitcoin and Subsequently ethereum and salana and um And and fall into the crypto um uh world You know you see people enter the top of The funnel they don't really come back Out and uh and so I think you've you've Created a massive um uh synold not just For for dollars but but for mind share For for people to pay attention to this Asset class and the true Innovation That's happening inside of it um and so These are um perhaps the uh gateways for Uh completely new pools of capital to to
Enter at the same time you have these Massive financial institutions that are Offering the ETFs active investing in The base technology itself not not just In the um uh the wrapper for for Bitcoin Or or at this point ethereum exposure um But how do we apply this this Technology um this revolutionary Technology to our Legacy business um and Upgrade you know to a financial system For the 21st Century now I recently put together a Report on the merging of two popular Technologies crypto and Ai and on Friday Coinbase announced the platform Witnessed its first crypto transaction Between AI agents according to architect Partners AI is pulling some investment Dollars away from other Technologies Including blockchain data sent to us From the crypto advisory firm shows that In Q2 of this year AI private Investments totaled more than $40 Billion doar far surpassing crypto Investments are you also noticing that AI is taking VC dollars away from Blockchain Investments Where I where I focus so I use AI Tools In in my daily processes and everybody At our firm does now and we're actively Um automating several of our our Processes um and and it's impossible not To uh pay attention to the change that's Happening um around us as far as um
Dollars being pulled from the blockchain Investment space into the the AI space I Think the most prominent Trend that I'm Noticing is is actually a a proposition To use um blockchain rails to Potentially control um or or or be the The payment rails for you know an AI to AI transaction like um coinbase release Topress release on this I think that's Very very promising um you know these Are uh these large language models are Are non-deterministic um you can get two Results uh two different results by Asking that the same question you know How do you uh monitor for um Integrity Um consistency and then especially when You introduce you know flows of of of Value um how do you check that a task Actually was was completed um and and You know the automatic release of funds Can can then be kind of provisioned I Think that there are the the perfect Rails for that our our our blockchain Rails Helen also provides his 12-month Outlook for VC crypto Investments you'll Be able to check out his full interview Over at cnbc.com Cryptoworld okay that's all for today But we'll be back again tomorrow and We'll see you then [Music]
