Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) — Watch out, Bitcoin, there’s a whole new class of contenders seeking to dethrone the king of cryptocurrencies.

Smaller, lesser-known tokens are outperforming Bitcoin in another “altcoin season” as the world’s largest digital asset has seen its dominance wane in recent weeks. An index of 100 coins is on pace to outperform Bitcoin for the second straight month, amid surges in Solana, Cardano, Avalanche and others. Meanwhile, many crypto firms are seeing greater client interest for these smaller tokens, with BlockFi last weekend noting a “flip” by its retail clients toward alternative coins.  

“They are again outperforming Bitcoin — they call it alt-season,” said Joseph Hickey, global head of trading at BlockFi. “It’s a momentum asset class. When crypto is running — and because of the risk premium within the asset class — it has the trading momentum behind it. When you add layer-1s that have higher beta, that’s where you have 20-30% moves in just a couple of days,” he said, referring to an underlying type of blockchain that competes with Ethereum.

The crypto ecosystem has grown tremendously over the past two years, with all sorts of crypto-centric products seeing booms. New companies were founded during the pandemic period, nonfungible tokens took off in a big way and alternative coins gained new prominence as investors looked to diversify away from just the largest digital tokens. 

Bitcoin’s share of the market has fallen to about 40% from 65% at the start 2020, according to CoinMarketCap data.

The term “altcoin season” has been used plenty of times in the past. But, the market is undergoing a revolution, says Russell Starr, CEO and executive chairman of DeFi Technologies, a decentralized finance asset manager. 

He likens it to the early internet days, when just a smattering of companies like Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc. dominated the space. For a long time, as the digital-asset space was evolving, people thought “the only way to play that space was Bitcoin and Ethereum.”

Starr says traditional finance companies and investors who wanted to dabble in the crypto space could really only do so via a handful of products, like Grayscale’s Bitcoin trust. Now, his company is seeing a surge in interest for Avalanche, Luna, Solana, Cardano and Polkadot. 

To be sure, while these cryptocurrencies have the potential for big payoffs, they can be more volatile than Bitcoin or other larger tokens. During market downturns, they could suffer heavy losses, and Bitcoin’s dominance could bounce back. That said, Bitcoin and other larger coins have all failed to break out meaningfully this year. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 100 Index, which is dominated by Bitcoin and Ether but includes many others, is up roughly 9% over the past month compared with Bitcoin’s 6% gain.

Some of the rallies over the past month for many smaller coins coincided with idiosyncratic announcements or developments. An analysis by Bank of America, for instance, found a spike in Twitter and Reddit mentions for Solana’s SOL, which followed news Coinbase Wallet had added support for it, among other things.

The crypto market is seeing tons of technological innovation and many investors are looking to get in early, something only the digital-asset space can offer, said Noelle Acheson, head of market insights at Genesis Global Trading. They can either participate via the private venture-capital market or they might be intrigued by Ethereum, she said. 

“Or they’re going to be going even further down the market cap, and they’re going to be looking at some of the new layer-1s that are coming up with new ways to incentivize participation, new ways to offer yield, new ways to experiment with governance,” Acheson said by phone. “There are some fascinating things going on with many of the smaller layer-1s.”

Acheson also points out that Bitcoin’s command over the market has waned. The reading gives market-watchers an idea of prevailing sentiment. A lessening in its market-dominance can be seen as supporting “an increasing role for the rest of the market, which represents the innovative technology” side of it, she said. 

(Updates trading)

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©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) — Peloton Interactive Inc. shares rose as much as 5.6% on Wednesday after investor Blackwells Capital LLC reiterated a plea to put the fitness company up for sale and decried its performance under a new chief executive officer. 

The stock climbed as high as $25.04 in New York following the release of a new presentation by Blackwells pushing for changes. Peloton had been down 34% this year through Tuesday’s close.

New CEO Barry McCarthy took the helm in February and has vowed to turn around the company, which had been thriving during pandemic lockdowns but is now struggling with slowing demand. But he has dismissed the idea of selling the business — irking investors like Blackwells, which says that Amazon.com Inc. and others could be bidders.

Peloton co-founder John Foley was removed from the CEO job in February’s shake-up, but remains executive chairman and is part of a group that controls the company with super-voting stock. That limits the power of an investor like Blackwells to force Peloton’s hand.

“Peloton will continue to be poorly valued for as long as a close-knit group of insiders, who have proven themselves incapable of creating value, continue to wield voting power far in excess of their economic interest,” Blackwells Chief Investment Officer Jason Aintabi said in a statement. “No shareholder should want Mr. Foley to still sit atop the management pyramid or control the board through his super voting-stock. He lost his entitlement to both positions when he destroyed $40 billion of shareholder wealth in less than a year.”

In response, Peloton said it “appreciates the views of our shareholders and have acted, and will continue to act, in the best interests of all Peloton shareholders.”

McCarthy, a former finance executive at Netflix Inc. and Spotify Technology SA, has been working to boost Peloton’s revenue from services — as opposed to hardware. This month the company slashed the price of a new strength-training device that just went on sale. It also is testing a program that lets customers buy its signature bikes through a subscription program.

But Peloton has lost an additional $2 billion in market value since the overhaul in February and it’s time for bigger changes, Blackwells said.

“Blackwells calls upon Mr. Foley to recognize his own limitations and the dampening effect his control has on public market investors by immediately eliminating the dual class structure,” Aintabi said. 

(Updates with Peloton response in sixth paragraph. A previous version of the story corrected the name of the company in the seventh paragraph.)

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(Bloomberg) — Justin Bieber and the Toronto Maple Leafs have the top-selling jersey style in hockey.

A collaboration between the Canadian pop star and the National Hockey League franchise has been the most popular purchase among fans over the last three weeks, outpacing all others across the league’s e-commerce and retail stores, according to the NHL. 

The new formula involves the kind of streetwear hype normally associated with brands like Yeezy and Supreme, with the design first leaked by Martha Stewart at a party in early March a few weeks prior to release. One side of the reversible Adidas jersey is black and blue — an alternate color scheme for the Leafs on the ice. The other is black and yellow with the smiley face signature of Bieber’s Drew House fashion label. 

The NHL has been trying to drum up interest among young fans in recent years. It’s getting players to become more active on social media and has built up a presence on TikTok. The league also created a youth advisory board made up of teenagers. This season, the NHL began a seven-year media rights arrangement with ESPN and Turner Sports, which brought games to streaming platforms ESPN+ and Hulu.

Bieber, who’s from Ontario, and the Maple Leafs have had a few link-ups before, including a song about his hometown hockey team and a limited-edition offer of hoodies and shirts last year. Sales of the new alternate jerseys were surely boosted by Bieber promoting the products extensively to his 230 million Instagram followers.

“It’s phenomenal and we’re so pleased,” Shannon Hosford, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment’s chief marketing officer, said in an interview. She added it was the first time the team has involved a celebrity in jersey creation, calling it “ a big change for our brand.”

Many sizes for both men and women are sold out and the majority of buyers are new customers for the Maple Leafs, said Hosford. The jerseys, which were for team’s annual youth-focused Next Gen games, will appear occasionally over the next two seasons and both sides are now discussing another potential project.

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©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) — E-commerce startup FirstCry.com is planning to file for an initial public offering in Mumbai as soon as this month that could raise about $700 million, according to people familiar with the matter.

The online baby product marketplace is seeking a valuation of at least $6 billion, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. The issuance will include both new and existing shares and a listing could take place as soon as this year, the people said.

TPG-backed FirstCry, led by founder Supam Maheshwari, was profitable in the financial year ended March 31, 2021, latest company filings show. It turned around losses from previous years as the pandemic accelerated the shift to online shopping. It is one of the few startups in India seeking to tap the IPO market after being profitable at an operational level.

Deliberations are ongoing and details of the IPO, including size and timing, could still change, the people said. A spokesman for FirstCry declined to comment.

The company, formally known as BrainBees Solutions Pvt, runs an online store featuring products for children and expecting mothers. Its investors include TPG, SoftBank Group Corp. and PremjiInvest, the family office of Wipro Ltd. founder Azim Premji.

PremjiInvest has stepped in to buy a stake that was initially planned to be sold to India’s sovereign wealth fund National Investment & Infrastructure Fund Ltd., by an existing shareholder, Bloomberg News reported earlier this month. The deal valued FirstCry at close to $3 billion, the people said.

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(Bloomberg) — A pollution control dam at UPL Ltd.’s fire-damaged chemical warehouse near the eastern South African city of Durban has spilled following heavy rains. The warehouse was torched by looters in July last year and the fire released a range of dangerous harmful chemicals into the air and nearby watercourses. Significant numbers of fish …

UPL Pollution Dam at South African Chemical Depot Spills Read More »

(Bloomberg) — South Africa aims to attract $900 million of annual investment in exploration of its substantial mineral wealth by removing bottlenecks, improving resource-mapping and diversifying its focus away from precious metals. The 2025 target, equivalent to 5% of the annual spend on exploration globally, is expected to kick-start a mining industry that has stagnated …

South Africa Sets $900 Million Annual Mineral Exploration Target Read More »

(Bloomberg) — Sasol Ltd. will no longer consider gas supply from a planned pipeline stretching from fields in northern Mozambique to its South African operations because it doesn’t want to get stuck with the infrastructure as the world shifts away from fossil fuels, Chief Executive Officer Fleetwood Grobler said.  The company, South Africa’s biggest fuel …

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(Bloomberg) — Namibia’s central bank lifted its key interest rate for a second straight meeting to safeguard its currency peg with South Africa’s rand and help counter inflationary pressures stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  The monetary policy committee increased the rate by 25 basis points to 4.25%, Governor Johannes !Gawaxab told reporters in the …

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(Bloomberg) — Richards Bay Coal Terminal, one of the world’s biggest coal export ports, said it’s operating as normal despite heavy rains in the KwaZulu-Natal province where it is located. The terminal, owned by companies including Glencore Plc and Exxaro Resources Ltd., operates alongside other bulk terminals owned by the government’s Transnet SOC Ltd. Transnet …

Richards Bay Coal Operating as Normal as Rains Hit Province Read More »

(Bloomberg) — A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S suspended some operations at South Africa’s biggest port because of damage caused by flooding that left dozens of people dead. Maersk, the world’s biggest container line, closed its Durban offices and asked employees to work from home for the rest of the week, according to a statement on its website. …

Maersk Halts Work at South Africa Port as Floods Kill 60 Read More »