Bitcoin Hits $35K: Is a Spot ETF on the Horizon? 🌅

In today's edition: 🎙️ New pod with James Seyffart and Matt Hougan, ⚠️ Safereum faces $1.3M scam allegations, 🌍 e-CNY breaks ground in oil transactions, and more!

October 24, 2023

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James Seyffart, market analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, and Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management, feel quite certain a spot Bitcoin ETF will launch in the next few months. 

First, the SEC decided not to appeal a court’s rejection of Grayscale’s application to convert its bitcoin trust to a spot ETF. Second, there’s been a change in the way the SEC has been treating the many other spot Bitcoin ETF applications—requesting miniscule tweaks in disclosure language. And even though other legal hiccups are occurring—the NY Attorney General’s lawsuit against Grayscale parent company, DCG, the SEC’s potentially renewed vigor in the Ripple case, and Cointelegraph’s incorrect tweet about a bitcoin ETF—the SEC needs a PR win right now. According to them, this means good things not just for spot Bitcoin ETFs but also, shortly thereafter, Ethereum ETFs. 

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What’s Poppin’?

by Sam Sriram, Brandy Betz

The market leading cryptocurrency gained 13% over the last 24 hours as markets priced in more movement on the spot ETF front.

Blockchain security firm CertiK alleged that the developers behind the Safereum project stole millions of dollars from users.

PetroChina purchased 1 million barrels of crude oil and settled the transaction using e-CNY, the region’s central bank central currency (CBDC).

Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️

  • ⚖️ A U.S. court has issued a formal mandate to assert its ruling that the SEC must reevaluate Grayscale's bid to convert its GBTC fund into a spot Bitcoin ETF.

  • 🔍 Sam Bankman-Fried's defense team proposed financial expert Joseph Pimbley as a witness in the FTX founder's ongoing criminal case.

  • 📰 Crypto community members claim The Wall Street Journal significantly overstated Hamas' crypto funding by 99%, sparking concerns among U.S. lawmakers.

  • 🏛️ Crypto-friendly U.S. Representative Tom Emmer is vying for the House Speaker role.

  • 💰 Lawyers for FTX's non-U.S. creditors proposed a deal offering 90% of remaining assets, with conditions for those who withdrew funds before bankruptcy.

  • 💵 A wallet linked to the defunct darknet market Abraxas moved 4,800 BTC ($144M) to a coin mixer, eight years after the market's closure.

  • 🌎 North America is leading the world in cryptocurrency usage, according to data from Chainalysis.

  • 📑 CipherBlade's founder alleged in a lawsuit that the firm’s new management forged signatures and stole company assets.

  • 🛠️ Celestia Labs introduced Blobstream, a modular data availability layer for Ethereum, aiming to scale Ethereum L2s.

  • 📉 Jonathan Farnell, former head of Binance UK, departed the company amid increasing regulatory scrutiny in the United Kingdom.

  • 🔑 A Friend.Tech user sold 850 ETH worth of keys, equivalent to $1.5 million, and switched to Bitcoin-based social app New Bitcoin City.

Today in Crypto Adoption...

  • 🔄 Deutsche Bank and SC Ventures have successfully executed their first stablecoin swaps on UDPN.

The $$$ Corner…

  • 🔒 Nym Technologies secured over $300 million in commitments from crypto venture firms for its Innovation Fund aimed at enhancing privacy in crypto transactions.

  • 🌐 NASD Inc. raised $3.3M in a seed round for Noble, an asset issuance chain designed for inter-blockchain communication.

What Do You Meme?

Recommended Reads

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up 12.9%, trading at $34,614

  • ETH is up 9.2%, trading at $1,831

  • BTC dominance: 51.21%

  • Crypto market cap: $1.32T

*All data as of today, 7:38 am ET

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