GM friends.
It’s been an absolutely wild week for Etheruem, and it might get even crazier today.
So pour up a coffee and take a seat, because here comes your spot ETH ETF update. ☕️📰
Here’s what’s in today’s issue:
- David shares his thoughts on ETH ETF approvals coming today, Trump accepting crypto donations, ETH and BTC ETPs coming to the London Stock Exchange, US BTC ETFs picking up steam & Kelp receiving a $90M valuation.
- Rekt Capital has the latest technical analysis for you on the market.
- Erik has an article on Bitcoin DeFi: Lending, borrowing, staking and more.
- In case you missed it by Rebecca.
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Spot ETH ETF Approvals Coming Today?
For the last few months, the market has been pessimistic about the odds of the SEC approving the stack of pending spot ETH ETF applications for trading. The first SEC approval deadlines are scheduled for today and tomorrow, for VanEck’s and Ark Invest’s applications.
But no one’s been getting too excited, as the agency has just been sitting on the applications, not communicating with the issuers, and not making any forward progress. Thus, Bloomberg analysts Eric Balchunas and Nate Geraci had pegged the odds of approvals at 25%.
But on Monday afternoon, Balchunas and Geraci dropped a bombshell, stating that they now believe the odds for approvals to be 75%, due to positive “chatter” at the SEC, as well as the agency asking the issuers to update some of their application documents.
Ethereum absolutely ripped on the news, going from $3,100 to $3,850, and added a cool $70 billion in market cap, within the span of 24 hours.
So just to drill in on the evidence again, there’s two reasons for why the analysts now believe we will likely see approvals.
First, some unknown source at the SEC is apparently telling NYSE exchange officials that the agency will likely be approving the applications. And second, the SEC requested the exchanges to update their 19b-4 filings, which cover various rules around how the products are traded. The reasoning goes that the SEC wouldn’t ask for updated documents if they were planning on rejecting the applications.
Just to get technical for a minute, but according to Balchunas and Geraci, it is possible that we might see the SEC approve the updated 19b-4s this week, and then the full applications at a later date. But if the 19b-4s do get approved, then it’s very likely that the full approvals will happen at some point in the future.
Fingers crossed that we get full approvals today and tomorrow.
Why the 180 Turn from the SEC?
The more interesting question is why has the SEC made this sudden 180 on the spot ETH applications?
The prevailing theory is that it’s political. Rumors are circulating that Biden campaign officials and Democrats in general are realizing they’ll lose critical votes this November if they continue being anti-crypto.
Indeed, we’ve seen a stark shift from the U.S. Democrats over the last two weeks, going from anti to either neutral or supportive. An increasing number of Democrats, including party leaders like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, are beginning to signal support for various pieces of pro-crypto legislation currently working through Congress.
Trump Accepts Crypto Donations
Part of the reason we’re seeing U.S. Democrats soften on crypto is because Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is pivoting hard as a pro-crypto candidate.
On Tuesday, the Trump campaign announced that they’re now accepting crypto donations. This makes Trump the first major U.S. presidential candidate to accept crypto as a campaign contribution.
This is huge news, for two reasons.
First, assuming Trump gets elected, the odds of him pushing for anti-crypto policies is extremely low, given the backlash he’d receive. And second, the fact that a major presidential candidate is now accepting crypto donations just shows how far this industry has come.
Basically, crypto voters in the U.S. are now seen as a legitimate constituency, and politicians are acting accordingly.
Going back to Trump, his sentiment towards crypto has slowly shifted over the past eight years, from somewhat anti-crypto, to ambivalent, and to supportive. It’s suspected that Vivik Ramaswamy got Trump’s ear and convinced him to take up a more favorable position.
BTC & ETH ETPs Coming to London Stock Exchange
And another stock exchange bends the knee.
This time, it’s the London Stock Exchange (LSE). It is expected that on May 28th, both WisdomTree and 21 Shares will launch their BTC and ETH ETPs for trading on the LSE.
This is quite a turn-around for the LSE, as U.K. regulators had previously banned such products as late as 2020. However, it appears that the spot ETF approvals in the U.S., Hong Kong, and other jurisdictions softened their position.
In March, the LSE announced that they would begin accepting bitcoin and ethereum applications for a possible Q2 launch. Apparently, Invesco also has an application that’s working its way through the system, but it’s not clear when that company’s ETP would launch.
It is important to note that currently, these ETPs are available only to professional traders. The LSE is excluding retail, but I think it’s only a matter of time before that changes too.
U.S. Spot BTC ETFs Picking Up Steam
Back on the other side of the pond, the U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs have been looking very strong recently.
According to data from Farside Investors, the U.S. ETFs have recorded seven consecutive days of net inflows, from May 13th to the 21st. Notably, several days have recorded very strong numbers ($250M+), with the GBTC dumping seemingly over.
Total daily average flows are currently at $144M+. The bitcoin protocol mints 450 new bitcoin per day. 450 x $70K = $31.5M. Thus, on an average trading day, the U.S. ETFs alone eat up 4.5X the bitcoin that the miners can produce.
ETH LSD Platform – Kelp – Receives $90M Valuation
Kelp, a developing Ethereum liquid staking derivative protocol, is now valued at approximately $90 million.
The increased valuation comes after the Kelp DAO raised $9M in a private token round sale. According to the DAO, some of the investors included DWF Ventures, Bankless, Draper Dragon, and SCB Limited.
Kelp currently allows users to participate in Ethereum restaking, but the protocol has plans to do the same for Bitcoin, Solana, and BNB, on their respective chains. Developers expect one or two of those products to go live this year.
Kelp currently has $966M in total value locked. And the protocol’s native token – KELP – is expected to be “launching soon.”
In today’s edition of the Wealth Mastery Newsletter, the following cryptocurrencies will be analysed & discussed:
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Dogecoin (DOGE)
- Coti (COTI)
- Avalanche (AVAX)
- Theta Token (THETA)
- VeChain (VET)
- Kyber Network (KNC)
Ethereum — ETH/USD
What a difference a week makes.
Ethereum has performed a phenomenal rally, closely following history in the sense of forming a bottom near the orange circled area much like in mid-2021 before reversing.
In mid-2021 upon reversal, Ethereum needed a Weekly Close above the orange box top followed by a retest in order to continue higher.
While a retest of the blue circle would be healthy on this run, the catalyst is a strong run and so price may not need such a retrace to continue moving higher.
It will continue to be a point of interest just in case, nonetheless.
Generally however, the goal for ETH is to revisit the green $3956 resistance and perform a Weekly Close above it to set itself up for a retest of the green level, much like it did back in late 2021 (green circle).
Dogecoin — DOGE/USDT
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been discussing DOGE’s Macro Downtrend and the Macro Retest of it as new support:
Since then, the Macro Downtrend Retest has been successful but we also discussed how DOGE needed to reclaim the green level to move higher and build on that newfound momentum:
Here’s today’s update:
DOGE has pressed beyond this green level and any dips into the green level, if at all, would serve in building out a base at these current prices in preparation for further upside.
CLICK HERE to go Premium and read the rest of this week’s Market Analysis – Premium subs can read Rekt capital’s full report.
Bitcoin DeFi: Lending, Borrowing, Staking and More
While older Layer 2s on Bitcoin such as the Lightning Network allow for faster and cheaper payments, the new generation of L2s brings smart contract functionality.
They make more complex use cases possible, such as lending and borrowing, staking, and other advanced financial tooling. Things are heating up in the Bitcoin DeFi space.
TO READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK HERE – “Bitcoin DeFi: Lending, Borrowing, Staking and More”
Crypto Market News
- Ethereum has jumped 10% to $3.4K after Bloomberg surprisingly increased its odds of an ETH ETF approval to 75%. Source
- Standard Chartered now expects the SEC to approve the spot Ethereum ETFs on May 24. Source
- Fidelity has amended its Ethereum ETF S-1 filing to remove ETH staking ahead of the next deadline. Source
- Grayscale’s CEO Michael Sonnenshein has stepped down and will be replaced by a Goldman Sachs executive. Source
- Venezuela has confiscated 2,000 mining devices and banned crypto mining to protect its power grid. Source
- Bitcoin has hit new all-time highs in Japan, Argentina and the Philippines as the local currencies continue to devalue. Source
- The US Senate has voted in favor of overturning the SEC’s crypto custody rule, which will now test Biden’s threat to veto the bill. Source
- CME Group is planning to offer spot Bitcoin trading on its futures exchange. Source
- Hedge fund Millennium Management has disclosed $2 billion in Bitcoin ETF holdings. Source
- Morgan Stanley has disclosed holding over $270M in spot Bitcoin ETFs. Source
- BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF has over 400 holders according to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas. Source
- CoinGecko has ranked the top 25 fastest blockchain networks and Solana tops the list. Source
- Coinbase is planning to provide a service to Australia’s self-managed pensions sector. Source
- MicroStrategy will be added to the MSCI World Index on May 31 giving global fund investors indirect exposure to Bitcoin. Source
- Vanguard’s new CEO previously worked for BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF team. Source
- Oklahoma has passed a law to protect Bitcoin mining and Bitcoin self-custody. Source
- Mastercard has added 5 new startups to its blockchain payments startup program. Source
- Mastercard and Standard Chartered have tested an atomic swap of a tokenized carbon credit for cash in a bank account. Source
- Private jet service Candy Jets has partnered with CoinCorner to accept Bitcoin Lightning payments. Source
- Brazil’s crypto regulatory framework is coming by the end of 2024. Source
Coins and Projects
- Bitcoin’s price could reach $74K in the coming weeks according to traders. Source
- The number of new Bitcoin wallets has dropped to its lowest level since 2018. Source
- El Salvador has mined 474 Bitcoins using geothermal volcanic energy since 2021. Source
- Max Keiser says Tether and El Salvador will send Bitcoin’s price to $220K. Source
- Ethereum ETFs could push ETH’s price to $10,000 in 2024. Source
- Vitalik Buterin has shared his thoughts on three threats to Ethereum’s decentralization in a new blog post. Source
- ZkSync’s token airdrop is expected to launch around June 13, according to an internal message. Source
- USDC issuer Circle is planning to move its legal base from Ireland to the US in preparation for its stock market IPO. Source
- Solana staking has launched on Robinhood in Europe with a product offering a 5% yield. Source
- Tether and TON blockchain have teamed up for USDT-to-fiat transactions using Oobit’s mobile payment app. Source
- Solana’s Phantom wallet has climbed to third place in the Apple app store’s utility category. Source
- Solana’s Phantom wallet has acquired the Bitski wallet platform which is backed by a16z. Source
- Sei Foundation has proposed its V2 upgrade to bring EVM compatibility. Source
- Polkadot parachain Moonbeam has announced the Moonrise initiative for its next phase. Source
- Gala Games has lost over $200 million in a potential hack after someone minted 5 billion GALA tokens. Source
- Worldcoin has open-sourced its biometric data system to improve its security. Source
- Degen chain is back online after a 2-day outage—the cause has not yet been revealed. Source
- ShibaSwap 2.0 has gone live on Shiba Inu’s Layer 2 blockchain Shibarium. Source
- Telegram-based game Notcoin’s trading volume topped $1 billion after its airdrop became the biggest gaming token launch of the year. Source
- Farcaster has raised $150M in a funding round led by Paradigm. Source
Macro News
- The US annual inflation rate slowed from 3.5% in March to 3.4% in April. Source
- President Biden will sell 1 million barrels of gasoline to reduce prices at the pump ahead of July. Source
- JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has hinted that retirement is closer than before. Source
- Godfather of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, has advised the UK government to start UBI. Source
- World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab is to step back from his executive role. Source
Thank you so much for your support, and I truly hope that today’s issue will give you insights needed to help you master your wealth.
If you are reading this it means you are on the free version of the Wealth Mastery Investor Report, which is great for news and tips on the crypto markets.
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Wealth Mastery (Lark Davis, and the Wealth Mastery writing team) are not providing you individually tailored investment advice. Nor is Wealth Mastery registered to provide investment advice, is not a financial adviser, and is not a broker-dealer. The material provided is for educational purposes only. Wealth Mastery is not responsible for any gains or losses that result from your cryptocurrency investments. Investing in cryptocurrency involves a high degree of risk and should be considered only by persons who can afford to sustain a loss of their entire investment. Investors should consult their financial adviser before investing in cryptocurrency.
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