Jihan Wu’s cloud-mining firm may not go public till December 2023.

The deadline for completing a merger that would see crypto-mining firm Bitdeer go public on the Nasdaq might be extended by up to one year, a Wednesday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows.

Last year, Bitdeer announced that it was merging with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Blue Safari Group Acquisition Corp. But according to Wednesday’s filing, the SPAC will hold a shareholder meeting to vote on extending the deadline to close the deal to as late as Dec. 14, 2023.

Bitcoin (BTC) miners have been struggling with liquidity, and raising capital has proved difficult amid the market downturn. Their margins have dwindled as the price of bitcoin is low while energy prices are high.

The deadline has already been extended twice by three months each, and the SPAC is asking shareholders for the discretion to continue pushing it back, with another four three-month extensions, the filing says.

Bitdeer offers cloud-mining services, meaning customers can rent computing power from machines that Bitdeer owns and operates. It is founded and led by Jihan Wu, a co-founder of mining rig manufacturer Bitmain who is renowned within the industry.

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Nasdaq has formed a new Digital Assets Unit and has said that it is open to partnering with crypto-native firms.

Nasdaq (NDAQ), the second-largest U.S. stock market operator, released a cryptocurrency custody service as it aims to cash in on the demand from institutional crypto investors, according to a press release.

The firm hired Ira Auerbach, who previously ran prime brokerage services at Gemini, as the head of its Digital Assets unit, the release said.

Nasdaq’s shift to crypto follows a wider trend across Wall Street with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, offering crypto to its institutional clients last month. Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC), which almost all U.S. stock market trades, released its own blockchain in August as it looks to speed up the settlement of trades.

“Demand among institutional investors for engaging in digital assets has increased in recent years, and Nasdaq is well-positioned to accelerate broader adoption and drive sustainable growth,” said Tal Cohen, executive vice president and head of north american markets at Nasdaq.

Nasdaq’s new product will rival the likes of Coinbase, Anchorage Digital and BitGo as it will offer bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) custody services for institutional clients in the U.S.

Auerbach said that Nasdaq is open to partnering with crypto-native firms, although it doesn’t have any short term plans for acquisitions, a Bloomberg report said.

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The loan brings Argo’s debt to build out its 200 MW Helios facility in Texas to $97.2 million.

Crypto miner Argo Blockchain (ARB) is borrowing $70.6 million from a subsidiary of New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) to fund the purchase of mining equipment for its Helios facility in Texas.

Argo, which has a market cap of £308 million ($385 million), announced another $26.6 million loan from NYDIG back in March, bringing the total to $97.2 million.

Argo expects the Helios facility in Dickens county to operate at 200 megawatts (MW) of electricity, but has the capacity to be ramped up to 800 MW, which would make it one of the largest mines in the world. The firm is one of a few buying Intel’s new mining chips.

The loan announced on Wednesday will be paid out in eight tranches from the end of April to July, each with an interest rate of 12% and maturing in about two years.

The loan announced in March came with an 8.25% per annum interest rate and a term of four years.

In Q4 of 2021, Argo also raised £29.6 million ($40.0 million) in unsecured debt by issuing of senior notes that are traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, according to its annual earnings report.

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Analysts say as the broader stock market goes, so goes bitcoin when recession hits.

With inflation reaching new highs month after month, and the Federal Reserve taking an increasingly hawkish stance, the U.S. economy is exposed to an elevated risk of upcoming recession.

The COVID-19 recession that began in February 2020 and lasted through April of that year – the most recent in the U.S. – did, however, have a positive impact on cryptocurrencies. It shot bitcoin (BTC) to an all-time high above $28,000 and, more importantly, caused investors and Wall Street firms to start taking the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization seriously.

But if analysts are right, and the U.S. economy is bound to go into another recession as early as next year, the cryptocurrency market could see a very different outcome this time.

Because of bitcoin’s recent strong correlation to U.S. stocks – from the Nasdaq Composite Index to the Standard & Poor’s 500 to the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 – the largest cryptocurrency’s performance will likely depend on what the broader markets do, according to some analysts.

“Bitcoin has really bound itself to the Nasdaq in terms of correlation, and if the Fed keeps hiking rates and if the market believes [it is] going to hike rates, recession or not, Nasdaq suffers in the short term,” said Bob Iaccino, chief strategist at Path Trading Partners and co-portfolio manager at Stock Think Tank. “And if this correlation continues, then crypto suffers, too.”

The 90-day correlation between bitcoin and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index has remained elevated since 2020, recently reaching a new high as shown in the chart below.

“During an extended recession I think we will see positive price movement with BTC but the rest of the crypto market would face headwinds as investors continue to move risk off and investors find it harder to raise funds in a tighter lending market,” said Howard Greenberg, a cryptocurrency educator at Prosper Trading Academy.

That strong positive correlation – not just true for bitcoin but some other large crypto assets, like ether (ETH), too – means cryptocurrency returns could suffer from a recession.

“Over the past few years they have become even more correlated to equity markets, and more recently the bond market,” said Joe Haggenmiller, head of markets at XBTO, a crypto trading platform.

“This trend may continue should we go into a recession,” he said. “We expect the major cryptocurrencies to follow the broader market on a short-to-medium term basis, on the upside and downside.”

This would be a very different scenario from what crypto markets saw during the COVID-19 recession. While bitcoin hit an all-time-hime and rose over 50% in 2020, equity markets suffered severe losses during the period between January and March 2020 before bouncing back to normal levels as the Fed stimulated traditional markets with freshly printed money.

A recession that drives down stocks might push the Fed to reverse its hawkish stance and move back to a more accommodative stance. And that could end up being a good thing for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies , according to Iaccino.

What would happen to bitcoin during a recession?

“During an extended recession I think we will see positive price movement with BTC but the rest of the crypto market would face headwinds as investors continue to move risk-off and investors find it harder to raise funds in a tighter lending market,” Greenberg said.

One reason why the correlation between crypto and the equity market is strengthening might be that traders are starting to see stocks as a hedge against inflation, just like bitcoin.

“In inflationary environments, stocks have a distinct advantage over bonds – they’re linked to companies that can adjust pricing – whereas bonds, not so much,” Lawrence Creatura, a fund manager at PRSPCTV Capital LLC, told Bloomberg.

Digital assets might see a drop in prices in the short-term, Jeff Dorman, chief investment officer at Arca, wrote in a March 28 report. But digital assets create value through network growth and brand loyalty as opposed to equity and debt, which represent a claim on assets.

“Given this backdrop, it’s possible digital assets are the only asset class that a recession wouldn’t negatively impact,” Dorman wrote.

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The exchange is considering a share sale within two years, though it has yet to reach a decision.

MaiCoin, a crypto exchange based in Taipei, is considering selling shares on Nasdaq within two years, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. A definitive decision, however, has yet to be made.

The exchange is completing a Series C funding round that may value the company at $400 million, Bloomberg said.

The exchange makes the majority of its revenue from Taiwan, according to publicly available figures. It counts Taishin Venture Capital, a subsidiary of Taiwan’s Taishin Bank, as one of its investors.

Traders on the exchange are able to use the Taiwan dollar through domestic bank transfers. They can also buy crypto at many convenience stores.

MaiCoin expects trading revenue to rise more than 70% annually through 2025, documents reviewed by Bloomberg showed.

MaiCoin’s MAX exchange pushes around $20.4 million trading volume a day according to data from CoinGecko.

A Taiwan dollar stablecoin project is also being backed by MaiCoin, but regulatory challenges from the island’s Central Bank may hamper its development.

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