The crypto-focused investment firm Galaxy Digital will be accepting cryptocurrencies, mining hardware and also property as collateral on cash loans. These loans are going to be given to crypto asset development projects and mining outfits. The information was released by Business Insider just a few days ago.
Galaxy Digital Wants to Raise $250 Million
Mike Novogratz, the CEO and founder of Galaxy Digital aims at raising $250 million worth of new capital. The funds received will be used to fund loans to cryptocurrency companies in the market. As reported by Business Insider, private sources the funding round will be open until March.
During 2018, Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital assets were in a bear trend that persists until today. Salt lending and BlockFi, other recognized crypto-lenders in the market, have experienced a higher demand for loans. The bear market has affected several projects in the space that tried to develop new platforms and crypto solutions. It is becoming increasingly difficult to survive this bear market and loans could help these firms keep operating for some more time.
Novogratz has always been a very strong supporter of the cryptocurrency market. Nevertheless, his predictions regarding the bottom of this bear trend were not right. Back in September, Novogratz mentioned that the market reached a bottom, but as soon as November 2018, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies dropped even lower.
There are several experts that believe that in the coming days the market could keep dropping. JP Morgan analysts, for example, believe that Bitcoin could be traded close to $1,260 before starting to grow again. Bloomberg analysts also think that Bitcoin could fall down to $1,500.
Although the crypto market could start to recover during 2019, the next months do not seem very promising for the crypto space. There were different events that were planned for this first quarter that have already been delayed several times.
For example, Ethereum’s Constantinople hard fork has been delayed once again for February 27 after a security breach that affected specific codes. The proposal made by VanEck and the Cboe for a Bitcoin ETF has been withdrawn after the U.S. government shutdown. The Bakkt platform backed by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has also been delayed several times in the last few months.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is being traded around $3,600 and it has a market capitalization of $63.08 billion.
