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In this edition: Robinhood’s Crypto Revenue Hits Lowest In 3 Years, But It Still Supports Crypto US SEC Holds Calls With Spot Bitcoin ETF Hopefuls Traders and Institutions Turned to OTC Market in 2023 in Search of Stability Arkon Energy Raises $110M to Grow US Bitcoin Mining Capacity, Launch AI Cloud Service in Norway 
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<h2 id="robinhood-s-crypto-revenue-hits-lowest-in-3-years-but-it-still-supports-crypto">Robinhood’s Crypto Revenue Hits Lowest In 3 Years, But It Still Supports Crypto</h2> 
 In Q2 2021, fees from trading <a href="https://cryptonews.com/news/dogecoin-price-prediction-as-avalanche-overtakes-doge-in-crypto-rankings-end-of-meme-coins.htm">dogecoin (DOGE)</a> accounted for 32% of investment platform <a href="https://cryptonews.com/news/robinhood-launches-commission-free-crypto-trading-app-in-eu.htm">Robinhood’s</a> net revenue. But since then, its crypto revenues have declined, dropping from $233 million during the surge to $23 million in Q3 2023. 
“I can’t control the price of Bitcoin or the total volumes in the market,” CEO Vlad Tenev <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2023/12/22/robinhood-crypto-vlad-tenev-johann-kerbat-eu-expansion-crypto-business-lookback/">told</a> Fortune. “But if we’re growing market share steadily during bear markets, and growing it much more quickly in bull markets, I think that’s an indication that our strategy is the correct one.” 
Robinhood, however, has continued to expand its footprint in the world of decentralized money, even amid the massive regulatory turbulence. 
It is launching in Europe, taking advantage of a friendlier legal environment and regulators clarity. It’s also relisting coins that the US SEC alleged were unregistered securities and adding other cryptos not available in the US. 
“We will keep adding for sure,” head of crypto Johann Kerbrat said, referring to potential products in Europe. He declined to be more specific about the additions. 
Even though Robinhood seems to want to distance itself from the memecoin mania of 2021, its plans do include dogecoin. 
“We don’t see Dogecoin as a negative asset for us,” Kerbrat said. Tenev “enthused” about the cryptocurrency’s status as an “inflationary coin” and its different “properties,” Fortune said. 
Entering the EU is part of Robinhood’s larger engagement with crypto over the years, during which its fees from crypto trading range from just a few percentage points of net revenue to accounting for nearly half. 
“I think it’s still very early innings in crypto,” Tenev said. 
<h2 id="us-sec-holds-calls-with-spot-bitcoin-etf-hopefuls">US SEC Holds Calls With Spot Bitcoin ETF Hopefuls</h2> 
 US Securities and Exchange Commission (<a href="https://cryptonews.com/news/sec-meets-with-seven-bitcoin-etf-applicants-as-29-december-deadline-approaches-reuters.htm">SEC</a>) staffers held separate telephone conference calls with spot <a href="https://cryptonews.com/news/blackrock-to-inject-10-million-into-seed-fund-for-upcoming-spot-bitcoin-etf.htm">bitcoin (BTC)</a> exchange-traded funds (<a href="https://cryptonews.com/news/advisors-may-drive-bitcoin-etf-flows-in-usa-more-news.htm">ETF</a>) applicants on Thursday, FOX Business <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/sec-holds-calls-spot-bitcoin-etf-hopefuls-possible-approval-nears">reported</a>. 
It is unclear if the regulator called all prospective issuers. However, per the report, it did hold calls with BlackRock, Valkyrie, Grayscale, Ark 21Shares, and Bitwise. 
It also called the exchanges where the applicants plan to issue their ETFs, the Nasdaq and CBOE stock markets. 
The calls discussed the application process and the way the ETFs need to be structured. The SEC will consider applications that structure an ETF that allows issuers to buy the product using cash only instead of “in kind” purchases using bitcoin. Redemptions of the ETF must be provided only in cash, too. 
Any mention of in-kind purchases or redemptions must be stricken from the application. 
The regulator is worried about possible malfeasance involved in using crypto. Also, it doesn’t currently allow broker-dealers to trade spot bitcoin directly like it does other commodities. 
Per the report, the SEC asked issuers to submit amended filings by December 29. 
“It is apparent from all the subsequent S-1 filings that the commission directed the change to cash creates, seemingly as a final hurdle before passage,” CoinRoutes co-CEO David Weisberger commented. “While timing is not certain, it seems likely to happen before the next deadline on January 10.” 
<h2 id="traders-and-institutions-turned-to-otc-market-in-2023-in-search-of-stability">Traders and Institutions Turned to OTC Market in 2023 in Search of Stability</h2> 
 As a result of ongoing struggles faced by centralized exchanges in 2023, as well as the post-<a href="https://cryptonews.com/news/galaxy-digital-on-the-hunt-for-more-crypto-bankruptcy-assets-post-ftx-deal.htm">FTX</a> landscape, a considerable number of traders and institutions turned to the over-the-counter (<a href="https://cryptonews.com/exclusives/is-crypto-otc-trading-for-you-3576.htm">OTC</a>) market in search of a more stable and secure market structure, <a href="https://ccdata.io/reports/crypto-otc-report">according</a> to a report by the cryptocurrency data provider CCData. 
In its latest report, CCData offered insights into the structure of the digital asset OTC markets. It included data collected from interviews with liquidity providers and offered perspectives on the OTC market’s performance and trends in a challenging environment. 
Among other things, it found that centralized exchanges like <a href="https://cryptonews.com/news/poloniex-to-resume-deposits-and-withdrawal-services-after-100-million-exploit-heres-more.htm">Poloniex</a> and <a href="https://cryptonews.com/news/binanceus-launches-enhanced-usd-on-ramps-buy-sell-crypto-using-usdt.htm">Binance.US</a> demonstrated significant variability in their spreads during the Silicon Valley Bank crisis, with standard deviations of 78.5% and 130%, respectively. 
This high variability contrasts sharply with the consistency observed in OTC markets, which showed almost uniform standard deviations across different trade sizes, with only a 0.1% difference between trades of 1 BTC and 10 BTC, it said. Source: CCData 
<h2 id="arkon-energy-raises-110m-to-grow-us-bitcoin-mining-capacity-launch-ai-cloud-service-in-norway">Arkon Energy Raises $110M to Grow US Bitcoin Mining Capacity, Launch AI Cloud Service in Norway</h2> 
 Data center infrastructure company <a href="https://cryptonews.com/news/arkon-energy-expands-bitcoin-mining-presence-with-fundraise-hydrokraft-acquisition.htm">Arkon Energy</a> closed a $110 million private funding round to expand its operations, the company’s CEO Josh Payne <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/22/arkon-energy-bitcoin-mining/">told</a> TechCrunch. 
The round was led by Bluesky Capital Management with participation from Kestrel 0x1 and Nural Capital. 
About $80 million will be used to acquire an additional 200-megawatt capacity across new data centers in Ohio, North Carolina, and Texas as part of its plan to increase the company’s total megawatts by 130% by mid-2024. This is in addition to the 100-megawatt facility in Ohio purchased in June. 
“The <a href="https://cryptonews.com/news/sec-chair-gary-gensler-gets-community-noted-on-x-over-crypto.htm">U.S.</a> is an attractive market for us in many ways, largely because of the enormous domestic customer demand, a mature and robust energy industry with several flexible and deregulated markets, political and regulatory stability, and attractiveness to institutional investors,” Payne said. “The U.S. has an abundance of stranded, underutilized power generation assets that are connected to some of the lowest-cost electricity sources in the world, many which are renewable.” 
The remaining $30 million will be used to develop an artificial intelligence (<a href="https://cryptonews.com/news/the-collision-of-ai-and-crypto-attracts-scammers-whats-going-on.htm">AI</a>) cloud service project at Arkon’s data center in <a href="https://cryptonews.com/news/bitpanda-secures-virtual-asset-service-provider-license-norway-pioneering-european-exchange.htm">Norway</a>. This will help service generative AI and large language model training markets. 
“Over the last year, there has been a profound market acceleration in demand for generative AI and large learning model applications,” Payne said. 
Arkon aims to fill a gap by providing the underlying specialized physical infrastructure layer the AI sector relies on. 
Launched in 2021, the company began with a 5-megawatt site in Australia. It now has over 130 megawatts and operates in other regions, like the US and Europe. 
“These sites appeal to both bitcoin miners and AI [or] machine learning clients who have very high power computing demands,” Payne said.

Robinhood’s Crypto Revenue Hits Lowest In 3 Years, But It Expands Crypto Operations + More News

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