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- > Spot Ethereum ETF Back on the Menu, Potential Approval Tomorrow
- > Bitcoin celebrates 14th milestone of Pizza Day by surpassing AU$100k
- > NVIDIA Smashes Earnings Estimates, Historically Has Benefitted AI Tokens
- > Donald Trump is Now Accepting Crypto Donations for His Presidential Campaign
- > Memecoins Go BONKers as Man Behind GameStop Short Squeeze Returns
Spot Ethereum ETF Back on the Menu, Potential Approval Tomorrow
Several big-name asset managers like VanEck and Invesco made a flurry of changes to their Ether ETF filings in anticipation of approval in the next 24-48 hours.
A spot Ethereum ETF approval may be just days away after a stunning change in fortune over the past week. It had been a long and pessimistic trudge toward deadline-day for most in the community, as hopes for an Ether ETF approval had been dashed following constant delays and a lack of communication from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The spot Ether ETF appeared destined to go the way of the Tasmanian Tiger – at least for now.
Yet the months of trepidation were dashed in the past seven days, as analysts started to leak that the fortunes of a spot Ether ETF might be shifting. There’s no exact reason why a near-certain rejection has morphed into a likely approval – however many are speculating the politicisation of crypto in light of the 2024 US election is behind it.
Traders capitalised on the reversal, with Ethereum leading a 7-day market boom. ETH climbed to US$3.7k – a near 30% gain – as investors prepared for spot Ether funds to capture about 15% of the ETF market share.
Adding fuel to the fire was five of the industry’s biggest asset managers – Fidelity, VanEck, Invecso, 21Shares and Franklin Templeton – filing amended applications within 25 minutes of each other.
By the time you’re reading this, spot Ether ETFs might already be greenlit, with a decision expected by some to come in the next 24-48 hours.
What this means for Ether’s price action is anyone’s guess. Pro-crypto bank Standard Chartered believes that the first year of trading could see between US$15-45b worth of inflows, leading to an ETH price above $8,000 USD (approx. $12,000 AUD) by the end of 2024.
Bitcoin celebrates 14th milestone of Pizza Day by surpassing AU$100k
Laszlo Hanyecz made the first-ever commercial Bitcoin transaction fourteen years ago, buying two large pizzas for the paltry sum of 10,000 BTC – now worth over AU$1b.
What’s the most expensive pizza you’ve ever purchased? The most gourmet, blue-chip, fancy-cheese pizza in the world. It couldn’t have been more than fifty dollars, right?
Well, how about half a billion dollars?
That’s exactly the amount of money Laszlo Hanyecz spent when he purchased two large pizzas back in 2010 for 10,000 BTC. The momentous day – May 22, 2010 – marked the first-ever commercial transaction for the original digital currency.
The buyer, Laszlo Hanyecz, took to the Bitcointalk.com forums to test out Bitcoin’s buying power. He solicited a British man to purchase the pizzas on his behalf for the light sum of 10,000 BTC.
At the time, Bitcoin was worth less than a cent, the two large pizzas cost US$41. Not exactly the cheapest pizza you could get your hands on.
The transaction wasn’t about getting value for money. It was about demonstrating the potential of Bitcoin as an anonymous, international mode of exchange that had the power to revolutionise modern finance.
Over the years, Bitcoin has evolved to be recognized not only as a currency but also as a long-term investment, similar to gold. Which has steadily made the price of Laszlo’s pizzas climb from “a bit expensive” to “generation-defining money”.
By 2018, after Bitcoin’s first transformative bull run, 10,000 BTC was already worth close to US$80m. Surely enough to buy a two-bedroom apartment in Sydney (and soon Brisbane).
And to celebrate the 14-year anniversary of Bitcoin’s Pizza Day, the price of Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention soared back above US$70k following a week of gains. This means Laszlo’s late-night snack cost him over $1b AUD.
So grab a Coke and a slice to pay homage to Lazlo’s sacrifice. But maybe, just maybe, there’s a lesson to be learned – don’t buy your pizza with Bitcoin.
NVIDIA Smashes Earnings Estimates, Historically Has Benefitted AI Tokens
NVIDIA’s earnings call went better than expected, with the tech giant reporting over 600% growth in profit since this time last year.
It’s report-filing time in the United States, which can be a momentous occasion for the fate of stocks and other assets. A strong earnings report can send sectors flying, while weaker results can shock investors into mass sales.
NVIDIA might just be the most important non-crypto company when it comes to the price of digital currencies. The tech giants, responsible for thousands of graphics cards and other computer processing units, are expected to be unveiled within the next day. Low supply and high demand pushed up the value of NVIDIA’s products, causing the stock price to spike by 200% since this time last year. Most in the industry believed “the company is going to clearly beat expectations” – and that’s exactly what they did, seeing year on year profits climbing an absurd 600%.
Due to NVIDIA’s heavy involvement in the artificial intelligence industry, strong performance from the company has typically had a flow-on effect on the cryptosphere. In particular, AI-focused projects have previously benefitted from positive NVIDIA earnings reports.
In the last 24 hours, as the market slowed to a crawl (following days of gains), several coins bucked the trend. The majority of them were – you guessed it – AI tokens.
Leading the way was AIOZ Network, which just yesterday was listed on NVIDIA’s Accelerated Applications Catalog, a database for developers to use and deploy relevant services. The project’s native token, AIOZ, is up 7% in the past day of trading. Similarly, the past 24 hours Fetch.ai, Render, Bittensor and SingularityNET all enjoyed gains of between 4 and 5% despite the broader market’s mediocrity.
How this impacts the AI subsector of crypto in the medium-term is still unclear. Such coins have already enjoyed a stellar 2024 to date, and the powerful outcome of NVIDIA’s earnings call may have already been priced in. However, the continued growth of AI both in and outside the Web3 world has many excited about the future of AI projects.
Donald Trump is Now Accepting Crypto Donations for His Presidential Campaign
Crypto has become a political issue for the 2024 US presidential campaign, with one-time naysayer Donald Trump leading the charge.
US politicians have a pretty loaded history when it comes to public statements on cryptocurrency. For the best part of a decade, digital assets were pushed as the devil, a vessel for criminals and crooks to pursue riches and other unlawful behaviour. Here’s just a taste of some:
“Bitcoin is a scam against the [US] dollar” – Donald Trump
“Crypto has become the preferred tool for terrorists, for ransomware gangs, for drug dealers, or rogue states that want to launder money” – Sen. Elizabeth Warren
“We should consider a pause using this [crypto] as a currency”. – Sen. Roger Marshall
But the legitimisation of crypto – Bitcoin in particular – has become too hard to ignore. And in typical political fashion, many of their opinions have undergone a seismic shift to reflect this. With the 2024 US presidential campaign in full flight, Trump’s camp has made the crypto industry a prominent political discourse.
After years of denying the currency’s legitimacy, Trump has backflipped to become one of crypto’s most powerful advocates. The first big move came when the presidential candidate stated he could “live with” crypto on a TV interview – but as it turns out, this was just the beginning.
The Trump campaign has officially begun accepting crypto donations, opening the door for a new revenue stream while indirectly endorsing the sector. The campaign note read:
“MAGA supporters, now with a new cryptocurrency option, will build a crypto army moving the campaign to victory on November 5th”.
Meanwhile, current president Joe Biden has also made pro-crypto steps in the past week. The White House publicly stated they are “eager to work” with current legislators on a regulatory bill set to shape the future of crypto in the United States, although stated its opposition to the bill in its current form.
Further, Mike Novogratz believes there was a “widespread shift amongst Democrats” to arrest the narrative that their party is against crypto, while Republicans are pro crypto.
No matter which side of the political spectrum you sit on, politicians are finally taking crypto seriously – and that speaks volumes to the legitimacy of Bitcoin and friends.
More than ever, it looks like crypto is here to stay.
Memecoins Go BONKers as Man Behind GameStop Short Squeeze Returns
The (in)famous memer behind 2020’s GameStop short squeeze and subsequent rally in price is back after three years, causing a ripple effect among financial communities that saw popular memecoins jump 30+% in the past week of trading.
Memecoins have had the time of their lives to kick off 2024. The ever-polarising sub-class of cryptocurrency burst onto the scene this year, with new candidates like Dogwifhat (WIF) and Bonk (BONK) enjoying gains of over 1,000%.
But just as it appeared the hype had started to cool off, Roaring Kitty came back onto the scene after three years of inactivity.
For those out of the loop, Roaring Kitty is the internet pseudonym for Keith Gill, the name behind the GameStop debacle of 2020. He led an army of retail investors to take on Wall St, who they uncovered had several short positions on popular gaming brand GameStop. Together, they pushed the price of the company’s stock – GME – up hundreds of percent, costing hedge funds millions.
So how is this relevant to crypto? Well, memes, of course!
The same community, huddled together in a Telegram group, decided to turn their attention to Coinbase (one of few publicly traded crypto companies), causing a 7.46% rally in the past seven days.
In general, the meme culture that allowed GME to surge back in 2020-21 has been stoked back to life by Roaring Kitty’s return. In fairness, the internet personality didn’t really do much other than post a spate of tweets (which were, of course, almost entirely memes).
But for coins solely based on meme with large online communities, it was a match made in heaven.
The price of BONK jumped 30% in the past week of trading, alongside PEPE (29.76%), Book of Meme (14.75%) and Dogecoin (7%). Solana users even minted a new memecoin – Roaring Kitty – in a direct homage to the king of memes.
Ben Knight
