Cryptocurrencies experienced a significant pullback, with bitcoin dropping to its lowest point since early July. Key industry developments included a new ETF proposal and a major partnership involving Trump Media and Crypto.com.

Cryptocurrency markets saw a notable decline as investors shifted away from risk assets, pushing bitcoin to its lowest level since early July. Ether and Solana also experienced declines, while major news included Bitwise's filing for a spot Chainlink ETF and a partnership between Trump Media and Crypto.com to establish a digital asset treasury focused on the Kronos token.

Industry leaders highlighted the influence of macroeconomic factors, such as expectations around U.S. Federal Reserve interest rate decisions, on digital asset prices. Regulatory concerns were also raised by the World Federation of Exchanges regarding tokenized stocks, and BitGet CEO Gracie Chen discussed the challenges of expanding into the U.S. market due to compliance costs and competition.

Crypto markets retreat as bitcoin hits lowest level since early July

Today, cryptocurrencies pull back as investors rethink risk assets. Shares of Trump Media rise after the company announces a new crypto-treasury partnership with Crypto.com. And Gracie Chen, CEO of BitGet, reacts to the recent moves in the digital asset market. Welcome to CNBC's Crypto World, I'm Talia Kaplan. Digital currencies are in the red this morning following a broad risk-off move by investors. By noon Eastern, Bitcoin tumbled below $110,000 and at one point fell to around $108,300, its lowest level since early July. Ether is also falling today, down to the $4,500 mark, and briefly hit a low of $4,300. Solana's SOL token followed suit, dropping to $190. For all the latest on crypto prices and this current pullback, check out CNBC.com. OK, let's talk about the top stories. Bitwise is looking to add a spot Chainlink ETF to its suite of crypto-linked investment products. The asset manager filed a prospectus with the SEC to list an ETF tied directly to the price of the network's LINK token. The new offering would be similar to Bitwise's Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, which launched in recent years. Chainlink powers financial services like tokenized funds, stablecoins and other payments. And the proposed ETF comes as crypto companies have seen a spate of successful IPOs. The LINK token rose 1% this morning after the announcement. Next, Trump Media and Crypto.com are partnering for a digital asset treasury. In a news release this morning, the two companies announced a definitive agreement with blank check company Yorkville Acquisition Corporation to establish the Trump Media Group CRO strategy. The firm would focus on the accumulation of the Kronos token. When the deal is complete, the new entity will hold about 6.3 billion tokens worth about $7 billion, making it the largest holder of CRO. When the deal was announced, Crypto.com CEO Chris Marzalek said on X that it was a historic day for CRO. He also said Crypto.com would acquire $50 million in Trump Media shares. The price of the CRO's tokens soared by nearly 25% around midday, while shares of DJT climbed more than 5% this morning. Finally, a group representing stock exchanges around the globe is urging regulators to rein in tokenized stocks. Today, the World Federation of Exchanges argued that the tokens create new risks for investors and could harm market integrity. The group said it was concerned that the tokens mimic equities without providing the same protections. The concerns were flagged to several regulators around the world, including the SEC's Crypto Task Force and the European Securities and Markets Authority. Coinbase and Robinhood are some of the names making a push into tokenized stocks. Those in favor argue that tokenized equities can cut trading costs, speed up settlement, and facilitate trading at all hours. All right, shifting our focus back to markets for our main story. I spoke to Gracie Chen, CEO of international crypto exchange BitGet. She reacts to the latest moves in the digital asset market and explains whether BitGet plans to expand to the US. On Friday, crypto took off with the broader market after the Fed Chair Jay Powell hinted at upcoming rate cuts and investors' return to risk-on mode. But that sentiment changed to start the week. So can you explain what's going on? What are some of the factors driving Bitcoin's price right now? Yeah, sure. So right now, the Bitcoin price is largely driven by the institutional adoption, ETF inflows, et cetera. And that's why we see when, you know, for example, when anything happens around the macroeconomics, then the Bitcoin price is impacted heavily. So right now, I think lots of expectation is around where and when that the US Fed is going to decrease their interest rate when they are going to do the interest rate cut. And that's where we have lots of ambiguity. So people don't really agree on specific time and whether it's like 25 bps or 50 bps in terms of the interest rate cut. That's when Bitcoin price can be and lots of other altcoin prices are impacted heavily. So some of the recent dump because of that. Focusing on Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency is in the red as well as of around noon today, after falling yesterday as well. On Sunday, however, Ether rose to a new all-time high above $4,900 after hitting an earlier record on Friday for the first time since 2021. Ether has been leading the crypto market for several weeks. So can you take us through some of the factors you think have been contributing to that dynamic? How much of it is a result of the new cohort of corporate ETH accumulators buying the cryptocurrency in bulk? I think the recent, some of the recent growth came indeed from what you point out in terms of the stock versus crypto kind of combination or integration. When companies like Sharplink and Tom Lee, individuals too, when they drive their order book or their narrative around the purchasing or holding the Ethereum. Why they do that and why the retail users still buy in that story? I think largely because some of the narratives came around when Ethereum is, Ethereum network is becoming the essential network for all the stable coins, global transactions like cross-border transactions, pay-fi, et cetera, and also stable coin settlement happened. So if you think about all those USDT, USDC, USD1, stable coins, transactions, where do they settle them? Of course, they have other options other than Ethereum, such as Tron, such as XRP, like Ripple Networks. But Ethereum is still the largest platform or public chain for all those stable coins settlement to happen. And if you think about that, Ethereum's fundamentals is not just this crypto narrative. It's more about the takeover of SWIFT, of MasterCard, of Visa, et cetera. So it's much more in terms of what it could be as a settlement network for the public chain. So I think that's largely the narrative for Ethereum. But of course, on the more surface side, when people want to buy Ethereum more by holding Sharplink and many other Ethereum-based public companies, it does make a lot of sense. Ethereum Foundation is growing large, is growing a lot. But I think deep down, it's all about what people think Ethereum network can achieve. So expanding on that, a rally for shares of certain companies that stock up on crypto as treasury assets has cooled dramatically in August. What do you attribute that to? And what does the pullback mean for these treasury companies holding crypto assets? I think treasury companies, it does make sense because lots of companies such as, especially like endowment funds, institutional investors, as well as some high net worth individuals, when they look at their replacement and allocations in crypto or in Web3, they probably prefer the more familiar format, such as a stock. For example, MicroStrategy or Sharplink, when they hold Bitcoin and Ethereum for the investors rather than for the investors themselves to buy Bitcoin and Ethereum themselves. And they initially think about how to store those cryptocurrencies and whether it's fully compliant and fully legal. So lots of risks that they can mitigate by just holding some of the treasury companies. It makes a lot of sense. But whether this is fully sustainable, I actually doubt that. I think the sustainability of those treasury companies might be largely impacted by new regulations. For example, one day when SEC or some other U.S. regulators came out and say, you know, you need to be more open and fully compliant about certain things. And it's not that easy to list any cryptocurrency or just by holding that cryptocurrency into a treasury, then that might be an ending book. And lots of other companies who might want to just add cryptocurrency, different cryptocurrencies to their treasury book, that may not work anymore. So I actually expect that to happen maybe in three to six months. Because I personally think it's not sustainable because they are not really doing a lot in order just to achieve that premium. Currently, BitGet is not operating in the U.S. due to regulatory restrictions. But now that we're seeing a more crypto-friendly administration and regulators, could that change for your crypto exchange? Can people expect BitGet to operate in the U.S. like other international crypto exchanges, say like OKEx, which announced in April that it was expanding its presence in the U.S.? So we still are on the playbook of being slightly more conservative about the U.S. market. Indeed, like you point out, when Donald Trump became the new president, we thought about having more joint ventures or more of the placement in the market. But in the end, we still came to that conclusion in terms of we think the cost and benefit doesn't really work out for us. What I mean by that is the cost being compliance and legal cost of having not just a Fed regulation and license, but also individual states regulation. It's a lot of compliance and legal cost. And then for the benefit, we need to compete with not just Coinbase and Kraken, but also Robinhood and ETFs issued by BlackRock and some other actual partners that we work with. It doesn't really make sense for us to enter the U.S. market. So right now, we still decide not to do that. Of course, some of our other offshore exchanges, as you point out, might have different thought about entering the U.S. market, but for BitGet, we are not doing that. That's all for Crypto World today. We'll be back again tomorrow and we'll see you then.

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