- Unhashed Newsletter
- Posts
- Ethereum ETF Delay: Win for BTC?
Ethereum ETF Delay: Win for BTC?
Reading time: 5 minutes
Can Bitcoin benefit from delay in Ethereum ETF approval?
Key points:
CoinShares and VanEck executives forecast Ethereum ETF approval delay in May.
Market watcher predicts capital rotation from ETH to BTC if that happens.
News - Like the rest of the market, CEOs from potential Ethereum ETF issuers like VanEck and CoinShares expect an ETH ETF approval delay in May.
Execs’ take: In a recent interview with CNBC, VanEck CEO Jan van Eck predicted a likely rejection of his firm’s spot ETH ETF application in May. The VanEck chief noted that there are no regulators’ comments, as seen during the BTC ETF approval process. Instead, the exec highlighted that “right now, pins are dropping as far as Ethereum is concerned.”
In another interview, CoinShares’ chief, Jean-Marie Mognetti, said he didn’t expect an ETH ETF approval at all this year.
Betting against ETH ETF: The pessimism has been echoed by Bloomberg ETF analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart. Similarly, the odds of May approval have dropped below 25% on the prediction platform - Polymarket.
In light of this “likely rejection,” Vijay Boyapati, author of “The Bullish Case for Bitcoin,” had predicted that “all the hot money that flowed into ETH because of ETF hopium is going to go back into Bitcoin.”
ETH currently enjoys over 16% market dominance. Massive outflows, if the ETF delay in May comes true, could slash its market dominance.
Solana races to fix congestion issues as SOL falls below $180
Key points:
Solana validators passed a proposal to accelerate transactions.
The ongoing negative sentiment has pushed SOL’s price below $180.
News: Solana validators passed the “Timely Vote Credits” plan to speed up transactions. The Solana network has struggled with persistent failed transactions blamed on “intentional vote lagging” and a bug in the key data transfer protocol.
If the test goes well, the “implementation bug” in the data transfer protocol QUIC will be fixed on April 15. The protocol loops all nodes and updates in the current state of the Solana network.
The issue with “votes”: Besides the bug, Solana network congestion is partly caused by “lagging” votes. Votes are how Solana confirms transactions. Validators are incentivized to make votes, but they have found ways to delay “votes” to maximize earnings.
The passed “Time Vote Credits” proposal aims to solve “intentional lagging” by offering more credits to validator votes with less latency. However, at press time, the plan's direct impact on block confirmation speed was not yet known.
When asked how fast confirmations could be after the proposal, Austin Federa, Solana's strategy officer, replied, “We’ll know when we know.”
SOL drops below $180: Following the network issues, negative comments on social networks tipped SOL to extend its losses below $180. The altcoin while down 15% in April, has hit a crucial demand level (above $160) since mid-March.
The CMF (Chaikin Money Flow) on the daily chart showed a likely bullish reversal. However, the RSI (Relative Strength Index) was still bearish and below average. The mixed signals call for caution.
Bitcoin network activity fell despite 69% rally in Q1
Key points:
Bitcoin rallied 69% in Q1 2024 on the back of massive spot ETF demand
The average daily transactions on the Bitcoin network fell by 15.3%
News - A Messari report, “State of Bitcoin Q1 2024,” noted that the king coin saw an impressive 69% rally in Q1, but network activity declined significantly.
Spot BTC ETF factor: The report acknowledged new U.S-based spot BTC ETFs as the “largest catalyst” for BTC’s price action in Q1. The 11 spot BTC ETFs recorded total cumulative inflows of $12.04 billion in Q1. Over the same period, the massive ETF demand tipped BTC to grace a high of $71.3K.
Network activity reversed: Interestingly, the report also found that Bitcoin’s network recorded a significant decline in network activity despite BTC's massive rally in Q1.
One of the dips was in the number of active daily addresses. According to the report, 895K daily active addresses completed at least 1 transaction in that quarter. For comparison, Q4 2023 recorded 937K on the same metric. This means that daily active addresses in Q1 2024 declined by 5% compared to Q4 2023.
With the drop in active daily addresses, BTC also witnessed a slump in average daily transactions over the same period. In fact, Messari found that the metric dropped by 15.3%.
Here, it can be argued that BTC recorded an uptick in network activity in anticipation of spot BTC ETFs (in Q4 2023), followed by a sharp drop after the ETFs' launch.
U.S Senate Banking Committee takes potshot at cryptos, ‘bad actors’
Key points:
U.S Senate Banking Committee Chair sees digital assets as a conduit for illicit finance.
The crypto-industry advocates for stablecoin legislation to address illicit finance concerns.
News: During a recent Senate Banking Committee (SBC) hearing, U.S senators voiced concerns about “bad actors” using digital assets to sidestep sanctions and drive illicit finance.
SBC’s contention: U.S Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown emphasized that “bad actors” are using digital assets as a “workaround.” He added that they like them because it is “easier to move money in the shadows without safeguards like Know Your Customer (KYC) rules or suspicious transaction reporting.”
Ergo, Brown emphasized that crypto-platforms must “play by the same rules as other financial institutions.”
U.S Treasury’s request: U.S Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyamo asked lawmakers to grant more authority, such as secondary sanction tools and capacity, to address jurisdictional risks from offshore crypto platforms.
Asked about the risk of directly applying old banking’s KYC and AML (anti-money laundering) techniques, Adeyamo clarified,
“We have to take a differentiated approach depending on the type of tool, and that's why we would use this, even under our proposal, in a risk-based manner.”
Crypto-industry’s solution: However, citing Chainalysis data, the crypto-sector has long believed that illicit finance linked to digital assets is a small pie. In fact, the industry has called for passing the stalled stablecoin legislation.
Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal even quipped, “If we are serious about addressing the small percentage of IF (illicit finance) conducted with digital assets, pass stablecoin legislation now.”
More stories from the crypto ecosystem
Did You Know?
The Visa/Mastercard swipe fee settlement is estimated to save retailers $30B. Interestingly, moving on-chain (on a blockchain, e.g., via Ethereum L2s) could save them 50X more, approximately $1.5 trillion.
Crypto-adoption has grown at 2X the rate of Internet adoption. With over 500M crypto-users at the end of 2023, the figure is expected to hit 1 billion users by 2025.
Kimbal Musk, Elon Musk's billionaire brother, formed Big Green DAO to scale food justice by leveraging blockchain technology. Launched in 2021, the Big Green DAO is the first nonprofit-led philanthropic DAO in the world. The DAO allows donors and nonprofits to support and fund gardening, farming, and agricultural organizations in the United States.
Top 3 coins of the day
Fantom (FTM)
Key points:
FTM was up 12% on the weekly chart and among the biggest gainers in the market.
Bullish recovery stalled at around $1 as capital outflows flashed bearish.
What you should know - FTM reversed part of last week's losses and was up 12% on the weekly chart and amongst the biggest gainers on CMC in the past 24 hours. However, the recovery stalled near $1.03 amidst a worrying spike in capital outflows, as shown by the dip in CMF. The RSI mounted above the median level, capturing the recent bullish recovery. Despite the bullish outlook, bulls must overcome the $1.03 resistance to reinforce their intention to march north.
Dogwifhat (WIF)
Key Points:
WIF retreated back to its short-term support of $3.0 - $3.4 (cyan).
Trading volume was flat as WIF extended its short-term consolidation in April.
What you should know: WIF has been consolidating between $3.2 and $4.2 over the past few days. At the time of writing, it had retraced from the range-high ($4.2), was down 14%, and was among the top daily losers on CMC. Additionally, trading volumes stagnated in the past few days, underscoring bearish sentiment. However, the price has eased into a key short-term support area above $3.0, which could induce demand. But the RSI hadn’t reversed yet at press time to confirm a bullish reversal at the support.
Pepe (PEPE)
Key points:
PEPE’s buying pressure weakened in April.
PEPE chalked a symmetrical triangle pattern, a trend-continuation set-up that indicates more upside potential.
What you should know - PEPE was overheated in March, but has cooled off into April. The price action has chalked a symmetrical triangle pattern, a typical trend continuation set-up that could mean more upside for the memecoin. However, the buying pressure was still constrained, as shown by declining trading volume since March. Although the RSI flirted with the median level, it was still below it, showing bearish sentiment. However, a breakout above the trendline resistance and 38.6% Fib placeholder could confirm further upside.
How was today's newsletter? |