Bitcoin and Ethereum recover as spot Ethereum ETFs move closer to reality, while Mt Gox moves to repay creditors
DATA from CryptoCompare shows that the price of Bitcoin rose by around 2.4% over the past week after it dropped to retest the $60,000 support level and bounced off of it, to now trade at around $62,800.
Ethereum’s Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, outperformed the flagship cryptocurrency as it rose around 4% over the past week rising from around $3,340 to test its resistance around the $3,500 mark before enduring a slight correction to $3,475.
Headlines in the cryptocurrency space this week focused on the potential upcoming launch of spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States, with would-be ETF issuers having submitted amended registration statement over the past week to provide new details on fees and seed investments.
BlackRock, VanEck, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale Investments, Invesco Galaxy and 21Shares all submitted their updated filings, with Franklin Templeton setting its management fees at 0.19%, while VanEck followed suit with a fee of 0.2%.
To Eric Balchunas, senior Bloomberg ETF analyst, these fees are low and add a “touch of pressure on BlackRock to stay under 30bps at least”, with these figures appear to show spot Ether ETFs will have “even lower” fees than spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Over the week, it was also reported that discussions between the SEC and asset managers on these spot Ether ETFs are nearing their final stages, with analysts pointing to the launch of these funds as soon as this month.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler has previously stated that the launch date depends on the responsiveness of applicants to the regulator’s queries. Gensler has also in the past said these ETFs are on track to be approved in the summer.
Meanwhile VanEck, one of the first issuer of spot Bitcoin ETFs, filed with the SEC to launch a new spot Solana ETF, the VanEck Solana Trust. The move came as Matthew Sigel, the firm’s head of digital assets research, noted it believes SOL is a commodity that “functions similarly to other digital commodities such as Bitcoin and Ether.”
The filing saw the price of SOL and its trading volumes surge, as it was the first filing for a spot Solana ETF in the United States.
These filings came during the same week Standard Chartered moved to become one of the first major banks to wade directly into the cryptocurrency market by establishing a trading desk for spot Bitcoin and Ether.
Mt Gox to begin repaying creditors in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash
Over the week it was revealed that the once-dominant cryptocurrency exchange Mt Gox was set to start repaying creditors this month in both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, according to the rehabilitation trustee overseeing its bankruptcy case.
The exact timeline of these repayments is set to come “in the order of the cryptocurrency exchanges with which the Rehabilitation Trustee will complete the exchange and confirmation of the require information”. Mt Gox has an estimated 127,000 creditors who have been waiting for a decade to recover their funds.
On top of that, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) kept selling Bitcoin on cryptocurrency exchanges over the past week, moving millions worth of BTC onto Coinbase and Kraken.
The funds originated from the 2013 seizure of nearly 50,000 BTC from the operators of Movie2k.to, a now-defunct film piracy website and while the BKA has been offloading some of the holdings, it still has over 46,000 BTC in its wallet.
Meanwhile, Nubank - a Brazilian digital banking giant that has entered the cryptocurrency space in May 2022 and allows users to trade in 14 different cryptocurrencies - is integrating with Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, to allow 100 million users in Latin America to adopt the layer-2 scaling solution.
Nubank, a major fintech firm in Latin America backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, has allocated 1% of its net assets to Bitcoin.
54% of Japanese investment managers plan to invest in crypto within three years, survey says
A survey conducted by Nomura holdings has revealed a growing appetite for digital assets among Japanese investment managers, as it found that more than half (54%) of surveyed managers plan to invest in cryptocurrencies within the next three years.
The survey, which polled over 500 investment professionals from institutions, family offices, and public-service corporations across Japan, also found that 25% of respondents currently hold a positive view of crypto, while 62% see it as a potential diversification tool alongside traditional asset classes like cash, stocks, bonds, and commodities.
Over the week it was also revealed that X’s payments subsidiary is set to launch without support for cryptocurrencies, despite Elon Musk’s well-known support for the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin.
Francisco Memoria is a content creator at CryptoCompare who’s in love with technology and focuses on helping people see the value digital currencies have. His work has been published in numerous reputable industry publications. Francisco holds various cryptocurrencies.
