Tag: ethereum

US Ether ETF Launch Timing Depends on How Fast Issuers Can Move, SEC Chair Says

The timing for when exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to the cryptocurrency ether can begin trading depends largely on how quickly issuers respond to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s queries, Chair Gary Gensler said on Wednesday.

The SEC last month approved applications from Nasdaq, CBOE and NYSE to list spot ether ETFs. It was a surprise win for the cryptocurrency industry which had expected the SEC to reject the filings after discouraging meetings with the regulator.

The SEC still has to approve the ETF issuers’ registration statements detailing investor disclosures before they can start trading. That process usually involves a lot of back and forth between the ETF issuers and SEC officials.

“These registrants are self-motivated to be responsive to the comments they get, but it’s really up to them how responsive they are,” he said. Gensler declined to say whether he thought that process would take weeks or months.

Gensler and agency officials had not commented previously on why the SEC appeared to do a U-turn and approve the ether exchange filings.

On Wednesday, Gensler said last year’s court challenge brought by Grayscale Investments which forced the SEC to approve spot bitcoin ETFs in January had influenced its thinking on the ether products.

Grayscale successfully argued that because the SEC previously approved ETFs tied to bitcoin futures it should also approve spot bitcoin ETFs, since bitcoin futures prices are highly correlated with spot prices.

Gensler said the cases are similar, since ethereum futures have been trading since last year. SEC staff “looked at these (ether) filings, looked at the various correlations… the correlations are relatively similar to the correlations in the bitcoin space,” Gensler said.

After the court ruled last year in Grayscale’s favor, the SEC approved spot bitcoin ETFs in January. Gensler in a statement at the time acknowledged the court’s decision, adding he felt that approving the products was “the most sustainable path forward.”

The SEC had for a decade rejected bitcoin ETFs. “Courts ruled otherwise. We adjusted,” Gensler said.

Still, he added he continues to see the crypto space as “rife with fraud and scams and conflicts.”

© Thomson Reuters 2024

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US SEC Approves Exchange Applications to List Spot Ether ETFs

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday approved applications from Nasdaq, CBOE and NYSE to list exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to the price of ether, potentially paving the way for the products to begin trading later this year.

While the ETF issuers also have to get the green light before the products can launch, Thursday’s approval is a major surprise win for those firms and the cryptocurrency industry, which until Monday had expected the SEC to reject the filings.

Nine issuers including VanEck, ARK Investments/21Shares and BlackRock hope to launch ETFs tied to the second-largest cryptocurrency after the SEC in January approved bitcoin ETFs in a watershed moment for the industry.

“This is an exciting moment for the industry at large,” said Andrew Jacobson, vice president and head of legal at 21Shares, noting it was “a significant step” towards getting the products trading.

Thursday was the deadline for the SEC to decide on VanEck’s filing. Market participants were bracing for the thumbs-down because the SEC had not engaged with them on the applications.

But in a surprise move, SEC officials on Monday asked the exchanges to quickly fine-tune the filings, sending the industry scrambling to complete weeks of work in just days, sources said.

Reuters could not ascertain why the SEC appeared to have a change of heart.

“The introduction of spot bitcoin ETFs has already demonstrated significant benefits for the digital assets and ETF space, and we believe that spot ether ETFs will similarly provide safeguards for U.S. investors,” said Rob Marrocco, global head of ETP listings at Cboe Global Markets.

Nasdaq and NYSE declined to comment.

When asked about the ether ETFs by reporters at an industry event earlier on Thursday, SEC Chair Gary Gensler – a crypto skeptic – declined to comment. An SEC spokesperson said in an email announcing the approval that the agency would not comment further.

The exchange applications had sought SEC approval for a rule change required to list new products, but the issuers still need the SEC to approve ETF registration statements detailing investor disclosures before they can start trading.

Unlike the exchange filings, there is no set time frame in which the SEC has to decide on those statements. Industry participants said it was unclear how long that would take. Two sources familiar with the process said many issuers are ready to launch, but the corporate finance division of the SEC has indicated it is likely to request changes and updates in the coming days and weeks.

The SEC rejected spot bitcoin ETFs for more than a decade over market manipulation worries but was forced to approve them after Grayscale Investments won a court challenge last year.

Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks, the index-provider for several of the bitcoin and ether ETFs, said ether is more complex than bitcoin and it could take months for the SEC to review the statements. But since the bitcoin ETFs offer an established template, “there’s only so much slow rolling” the SEC can do, he said.

An array of investors, including hedge funds, wealth advisors and retail investors, have poured more than $30 billion into the crypto ETFs.

Thursday’s decision is another tailwind for cryptocurrency industry efforts to push into mainstream finance. This week the UK regulator also approved listed cryptocurrency products while the U.S. House of Representatives passed a landmark bill seeking to provide regulatory clarity for cryptocurrencies.

While that bill still needs to pass the Senate, its extensive bipartisan support marks a major endorsement for the industry.

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Solana Blockchain Beats Ethereum on Popularity Quotient, Memecoins Contribute

Crypto enthusiasts are seemingly taking advantage of the ongoing bull run, generating major activities across blockchain networks. The eco-friendly Solana blockchain, on the scale of most popular, has managed to defeat Ethereum in recent days. The credit for this goes to the frenzy of Solana-based NFTs and memecoins that have captured the attention of the members of the global Web3 community. As per data collected by Coinbase, in the last 24 hours alone the Solana blockchain saw transactions worth $11 billon (roughly Rs. 91,703 crore) with people purchasing small tokens and memecoins based on the network.

In a recently published analysis, CoinGecko ranked Solana number one on the list of most popular blockchains. As per its data, Solana commands 49.3 percent of global crypto investor interest.

Solana was launched in 2020 by Solana Labs, which was founded by Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal in 2018. At the time of its launch SOL, the native token of Solana was priced at $0.22 (roughly Rs. 18). Now, with the spike in Solana-based activities, the price of its token is also on a surge. This week, the price of the SOL token breached the mark of $200 (roughly Rs. 16,700) for the first time since its inception. After undergoing a slight price correction period, SOL is presently trading at $175 (roughly Rs. 14,600). In fact, in the last one year, the value of SOL has escalated by a remarkable 700 percent.

The Solana blockchain has reportedly managed to garner $150 million (roughly Rs. 1,252 crore) through the sale of memecoins like Bonk and Slerf. Subsequently, the transaction fees on Solana has also witnessed a spike in recent months despite the blockchain being famous for having comparatively cheaper gas fee charges.

“Solana has shown immense strength. The total trading volume of DEXes also has been largely skewed towards SOL with a total volume of more than $6 billion (roughly Rs. 50,190 crore) on the Solana chain in the last 24 hours; it has been only close to $2.1 billion (roughly Rs. 17,566 crore) in the case of Ethereum. Memecoin mania is the biggest driver of the on-chain trading that we are seeing today,” the CoinSwitch Markets Desk told Gadgets360.

As far as Ethereum is concerned, the blockchain did undergo an important update called Dencun earlier this year. On the sidelines of this, the Ethereum blockchain has secured the second rank on the most popular blockchains list compiled by CoinGecko. Ethereum holds 12.73 percent of the global traffic share between January 1 and March 18, 2024.

“This is likely because Ethereum is already well-established as an ecosystem and familiar to investors, such that it is no longer considered a new, trending crypto narrative,” the analysis noted.

The BNB Chain, Cosmos, Avalanche, and Arbitrum secured ranks third to sixth on CoinGecko’s list.

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US SEC to Approve Ethereum ETF in May, Standard Chartered Predicts

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is likely to allow exchange-traded funds to hold the cryptocurrency Ethereum in May, Standard Chartered predicts.

May 23 is the last date by which the agency must consider ETF applications from VanEck and Ark 21Shares, the bank said in a research report Tuesday. The asset managers will be the first to come up against the final deadline.

Standard Chartered expects the SEC to rule on the applications on the final date, as it did on January 10, when it approved 10 Bitcoin ETFs. Ethereum has key similarities to Bitcoin’s legal and financial status that suggests it will follow a similar approval pattern, according to Geoff Kendrick, the head of FX Research, West, and Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered.

Last June, the SEC left Bitcoin and Ether off a list of 67 tokens it considered to be securities. In addition, Ether — like Bitcoin — also has futures traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange — a key surveillance tool. At about $285 billion (roughly Rs. 23,66,701 crore), Ether is the second-largest cryptocurrency in market value after Bitcoin.

Kendrick expects Ether’s price to rise to $4,000 (roughly Rs. 3,32,168) by the projected May 23 approval date, assuming that it follows a trading pattern similar to Bitcoin through the ETF approval process. Ether traded at about $2,370 (roughly Rs. 1,96,809) on Tuesday.

That price prediction, however, is based on multiple assumptions being true, including general market sentiment for approval remaining low, implied-volatility being wrong, and the SEC approving multiple applications on the same day.

Ether is expected to avoid much of the selloffs that Bitcoin experienced post-ETF approval, Standard Chartered said. Bitcoin fell as much as 20 percent following the ETF approval as investors, including FTX, sold billions in holdings of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). The fund was converted from a trust that holders couldn’t make redemptions. Grayscale’s existing Ethereum trust holds a smaller portion of the total market capitalization of Ether, compared with the Bitcoin held in GBTC.

“These factors should make ETH less vulnerable than BTC to a post-approval selloff,” Kendrick wrote.

© 2024 Bloomberg LP

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NFTs Start Climbing Up Price Ladders Again as Bitcoin, Ether Show Continuous Rally

The market for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) seems to be on a revival sprint now that the crypto market is on a bull run. With cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, and Polygon pumping in value, a bunch of NFT series associated with these altcoins have started to be climb up the price tracker. NFTs are digital collectibles that are built to be supported on blockchain networks. From game characters and cartoons to artists and artworks — NFTs can be inspired by an array of people, places, or characters.

Pudgy Penguins is one crypto project that for now, is garnering more value after seeing a slump in these previous recent months. Built on the Ethereum blockchain, the NFT series is a collection of 8,888 NFTs that resemble cartooned versions of penguins. his week itself, the trading volume of these NFTs have shot up by 394 percent, a Decrypt report said citing data from the CryptoSlam tracker.

After having traded lowly in recently months, the prices of Pudgy Penguins NFTs has spiked by 74 percent. At present, the cheapest Pudgy Penguin NFT is priced $21,289 (roughly Rs. 17.7 lakh).    Around October, the cheapest NFT was priced $9,000 (roughly Rs. 7.50 lakh) worth of ETH.

Anime-inspired NFT series Azuki, Ethereum NFT project Milady Maker along with Solana projects Claynosaurz and Chads have seen spikes in their prices these recent weeks, the report said.

This surge in NFT pricings come as a refreshing change of pace from this year’s September, when a report had claimed that among the top 8,850 NFT collections by market cap, 18 percent were worthless, and 41 percent saw their prices drop to around $5 (roughly Rs. 415) to $10 (roughly Rs. 835).

It is notable, that in the backdrop of these NFT revivals, Bitcoin and Ether are trading at their respective nineteen month highs. While BTC is trading at $41,738 (roughly Rs. 34.8 lakh), ETH is priced around $2,228 (roughly Rs. 1.85 lakh). Similarly, Solana and Polygon are also seeing more gains than dips that is launching NFT projects linked to them up the price ladder.

NFTs peaked in September 2021 when sales of these digital collectibles managed to amass around $881 million (roughly Rs. 7,344 crore). However, as of November this year, NFT sales only managed to bring-in $10.85 million (roughly Rs. 90 crore).

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Magic Eden Launches Crypto Wallet with Cross-Chain Workability: Details

Magic Eden, which is an online marketplace for NFT sales, is adding more functionalities and capabilities to its platform to attempt to revive people’s interest in digital collectibles after a visible sector slowdown. The platform has now decided to launch a crypto wallet browser extension, that will be compatible with multiple blockchains. The aim of creating this multi-chain wallet is to provide a single storage solution for people to store their cryptocurrencies as well as purchased NFTs.

Presently in its closed beta state, Magic Eden’s wallet will support storage of NFTs based on Bitcoin, Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon.

As per Jack Lu, the CEO and Co-Founder of Magic Eden, people had to make four different wallets compatible with four different blockchain to be able to save their NFTs. This eventually led to people walking away from engaging with NFT and reportedly led to Magic Eden’s decision to launch a wallet service that would be compatible with multiple blockchains.

The wallet will facilitate instant transfer of cryptocurrencies between blockchains and easily collect any NFT on Solana, Ethereum, Polygon, or Bitcoin Ordinals. The service will also provide a direct integration with Magic Eden’s NFT platform for better management of digital collectibles, said an explanation blog about the service.

Magic Eden published an official update about this upcoming service on X as well.

Presently, the self-custodial wallet service is only available to a few numbers of testers. The development comes at a time when the sales of NFTs dropped significantly in these last few years.

NFTs peaked in September 2021 when sales of these digital collectibles managed to amass around $881 million (roughly Rs. 7,344 crore). However, ass of November this year, NFT sales only managed to bring-in $10.85 million (roughly Rs. 90 crore).

Earlier in September, a report had claimed that among the top 8,850 NFT collections by market cap, 18 percent were worthless, and 41 percent saw their prices drop to around $5 (roughly Rs. 415) to $10 (roughly Rs. 835).

In fact, Magic Eden itself has faced the brunt of the slowdown of the NFT market. In February this year, the platform had announced layoffs from its team.

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Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest and 21Shares File for First Spot-Ether ETF in the US: Details

Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest and crypto investment firm 21Shares are seeking regulatory approval to set up an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would directly hold ether, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday.

It is the first attempt to list a fund in the US that would directly invest in ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

In a boost to the crypto sector, the US District of Columbia Court of Appeals last month passed a landmark ruling that the SEC was wrong to reject an application from crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments to list an ETF that tracks the price of bitcoin.

The case has been closely watched by the cryptocurrency and asset management industries, which have been trying for years to convince the SEC to approve a spot bitcoin ETF.

Cboe Global Markets earlier this year filed a proposal with the US SEC to list and trade shares of a spot bitcoin ETF by Ark Invest and 21Shares on the Cboe BZX exchange. The SEC, however, delayed a decision on whether to approve it.

The regulator has in recent years rejected dozens of applications for spot bitcoin ETFs, citing inadequate levels of trading surveillance that could leave the underlying spot market subject to fraud and manipulation.

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Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade Results in Just Over 1 Million Token Withdrawals, No Market Upheaval: Details

The Ethereum blockchain underwent the Shanghai upgrade last week, but has not seen any upheaval in the market that was predicted by members of the crypto community. The withdrawals of staked ETH tokens amounted for only over 1 million tokens over the last five days. This did not shake up the crypto market as expected, hinting at a bullish sentiment in the market. In the backdrop of this development, Ether has jumped to its highest prices recorded in eleven months.

On April 12, Ethereum completed its Shanghai upgrade that now allows it validators to withdraw the ETH tokens that they have staked on the blockchain to enter the blockchain validator software. To do so, one has to deposit or ‘stake’ ETH 32 on the blockchain and take the responsibility to store data, process transactions, and earn rewards in return.

Days before Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade, members of the crypto community began to suspect that several ETH stakers could rush to the blockchain to withdraw their tokens. If that happened, the crypto market could suffer massive upheaval.

Contrary to these expectations, only over 1 million ETH tokens left the Ethereum blockchain from over 477,085 transactions, data by Beacon Chain tracker showed. Currently, ETH is trading at the price point of $2,097 (roughly Rs. 1.71 lakh). At this rate, around $2 billion (roughly Rs. 17,194 crore) have reportedly been “unstaked” out of the Ethereum blockchain.

Ether has a market cap of over $249 billion (roughly Rs. 20,40,617 crore). This is why the amount it lost after its Shanghai upgrade did not have a catastrophic effect on its trading value as well as on the overall crypto market. Three “whale” wallets withdrew over 19,000 ETH tokens, details of which have emerged on Twitter.

“Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, achieved a new 11-month high. ETH, in the last few days, clocked a 134 percent increase since its lowest cycle in June 2022. This has fuelled fresh enthusiasm among investors following the successful Shanghai upgrade,” Edul Patel, CEO of Mudrex crypto investment firm told Gadgets 360.

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Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade, First Major One Since Merge, Is Complete: Binance

The software that underpins the second-biggest crypto coin ether was upgraded on Wednesday and is online, cryptocurrency exchange Binance said in a tweet.

The move will give investors access to more than $30 billion (roughly Rs. 2,45,877 crore) of the digital tokens.

Known as Shapella, the latest upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain since its Merge upgrade will enable investors to redeem an offshoot of ether tokens that they have deposited in return for interest on the blockchain network over the past three years.

Such so-called “staked ether” tokens currently account for about 15 percent of all ether tokens, according to data firm Dune Analytics, and are worth some $31 billion.

“The Shanghai/Shapella Upgrade is complete. Deposits & withdrawals for ETH, OP, ARB and ERC-20 tokens via the Ethereum, Optimism, and Arbitrum networks are now back online,” Binance said in a tweet.

The changes will likely lead to heightened volatility for ether, investors have predicted.

Some believe that widespread redemptions could lead to a wave of selling, in turn weighing on the price of ether, whose market value of about $230 billion is topped only by bitcoin.

“The release of this previously unrealised investment may lead to significant downward price pressure if it is immediately liquidated,” Deutsche Bank analysts said in a note.

In its last significant upgrade, Ethereum in September drastically reduced its energy usage – a move proponents said would give Ethereum an advantage as it seeks to surpass bitcoin.

But ether has continued to lag its larger rival, gaining just under 60 percent this year versus a more than 80 percent jump for bitcoin.

After trillions of dollars were wiped from the crypto market in a bruising 2022, the sector has rallied in 2023 on expectations that central bank interest rate hikes are slowing.

Ethereum has grown popular in so-called decentralised finance applications, which offer financial services while avoiding traditional industry gatekeepers such as banks.

It remains, however, little used in mainstream commerce or finance.

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