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Last week was all about US Bitcoin ETFs in the cryptocurrency world. Rumors started swirling around last week that approvals are coming, what are the sources Certain.
But the road to approval was not smooth. On Tuesday, X’s SEC account was hacked, a spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch. This was a huge The problem is because the government account made an “unauthorized” post that the agency granted approval for “Bitcoin ETFs.”
The post ran for approximately 30 minutes, prompting a number of media outlets and online personalities to report that the SEC had granted approval to the upcoming spot bitcoin ETFs. The unauthorized post has since been deleted.
But all’s well that ends well. Fast forward to Wednesday, and the SEC approved the first spot Bitcoin ETF applications for 11 issuers (TC+). I spoke with a couple of executives from Grayscale and Valkyrie about what’s in store for their spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Read about it here:
Thursday morning trading for spot bitcoin ETFs began and brought in about $2 billion in total trading volume, said Matthew Siegel, head of digital asset research at VanEck.
Before that, Valkyrie co-founder Stephen McClurg told TechCrunch that he expects trading volume of $2 billion to $3 billion in the first week, so this initial influx may indicate that demand may become larger than originally expected.
Note: Other than the regularly scheduled newsletter segments, I will be playing around with some recurring segments and features. Not only that, in the coming weeks, we’ll be retiring the “chain reaction” name for something a little more: TechCrunch Crypto. So keep an eye out for that!
If there’s something you’d like to see, let me know at jacquelyn@techcrunch.com.
Anyway, that’s enough housekeeping and Bitcoin ETF news today. Let’s move on, shall we?
This week on web3
- USDC stablecoin issuer Circle is secretly filing for an initial public offering (TC+).
- Hestiia wants you to mine cryptocurrencies to heat your home
- X removes support for NFT profile photos
- Apple pulls Binance, Kraken and other cryptocurrency apps from Indian App Store
- Is India done with cryptocurrencies?
- Fox partners with Polygon Labs to address distrust of deepfakes
- Logan Paul promises to get your CryptoZoo money back, as long as you don’t sue him
Latest pod
For this week episode, Jacqueline Interviewed by Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale Investments.
Grayscale is a digital asset investment firm that aims to provide products and services to institutional and retail investors, and is well known for its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and now its new Bitcoin ETF product. The company was founded in 2014 and is one of the largest digital asset currency management companies in the world. The GBTC fund owns more than 3% of the outstanding supply of Bitcoin, worth tens of billions of dollars.
The company and its executives have made headlines in the past for their aggressive efforts to get their bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) approved after it was originally rejected by the SEC in June 2022, after which the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled in its favor. . And now, Grayscale's Bitcoin ETF has been approved.
We dive into what instant Bitcoin ETF approval means for GBTC and market demand. We also discussed competition between issuers, fee structures, why regulated Bitcoin exposure is important, as well as what a Bitcoin ETF could mean for the cryptocurrency space.
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Follow the money
- Hedera-based online music startup Tune.FM has raised $20 million in a strategic round
- Liquidity solutions startup Eese has raised $2.85 million in a seed round
- DeFi developer NoahArk Tech Group has secured $2.4 million from EOS Network Ventures
- OORT raised $10 million to focus on its decentralized cloud for privacy and cost savings
- Altitude has raised $6.1 million in a seed round to optimize DeFi loans
This list was compiled with information from Messari as well as TechCrunch's own reporting.
What else do we write?
Do you want to branch out from the world of web3? Here are some articles about TechCrunch that caught our attention this week.
- CES 2024: Everything revealed so far, from Nvidia and Sony to Pocket Rabbit's AI and its strangest reveals
- CES 2024: The strangest technology, gadgets and artificial intelligence claims from Las Vegas
- Funding for institutions remains flat in 2023 (TC+)
- Shown in 5 graphs: Venture Capital in 2023 (TC+)
- Meta faces another privacy challenge in the EU over its “pay for privacy” consent option.
Follow me on Twitter @jackmlink For breaking cryptocurrency news, memes, and more.