Weekly Market Update: Ether ETF Launch on the Horizon

Over the last week, Bitcoin dipped below $64k, seemingly influenced by a sell-off by German authorities and Mt. Gox repayments. 

Bitcoin ETFs experienced ongoing outflows, contrasting with inflows into multi-asset products – a notable trend. Additionally, the SEC wrapped up its ETH 2.0 investigation, and a Bloomberg analyst has reconfirmed July 2 as a potential launch date for an Ether ETF.

Nvidia has been rising to the very top. Briefly the tech company became the world’s most valuable company, overtaking Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL). However, Nvidia might have been wise to heed Daedalus’ warning to Icarus; Don’t fly too close to the sun. 

Nvidia’s stock price has tumbled more than 6% in the last 24 hours at time of writing, and closer to 11% from its all-time high of 139.87 USD to 118.10 USD. This change has wiped nearly 300 billion dollars from the value of Nvidia, nearly ¾ of Ethereum’s market capitalization. 

That being said, YTD Nvidia share price is still up a nice 145%. This latest price correction might help Nvidia stem the flow of one of the largest existential issues currently. Its subject matter experts and long term core engineering teams are too wealthy. Suffering from Success I guess. (Source)

With mid level management reported taking over more than 1m USD in stock per year, someone that works a single year of work in 2019 would have netted an employee nearly 30m in stock options as at current prices.

To continue the story from last week. Market sentiment has continued to drop like a rock. Given the months of stability & inaction, many were wishing for the markets to move, however this seems to be a case of careful what you wish for.

Highlights this week:

• At the time of writing, BTC down 6.4% and ETH down 4.7%.
• It’s also important for you to know that OCEAN is being merged into FET in preparation for the migration to ASI, according to the token merger updates from the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance.
• Over the last 7 days, Ontology Gas (ONG) and Pepe (PEPE) have massively outperformed the market with gains of 13.3% and 12.2%, respectively.

View all top gainers: Visit the top gainers page to find out more.

Highlights from the crypto space

Bloomberg analysts expect July 2 as the launch date for the Spot Ether ETF. Watch this space! Some in the crypto community see this as a potential opening for SEC approval of Solana or XRP ETFs.

In the ETF realm, Bitcoin ETFs extended their outflow streak, while multi-asset products attracted $98 million in inflows, indicating investors view weakness in the altcoin market as a buying chance, according to Coinshare.

In a surprise contender for most ambitious crossover event the billionaire owner of Dell, Micheal Dell, has surprised crypto Twitter by signaling interest in BTC, specifically in Michael Saylor’s Microstrategy. 

McKinsey has come out to say that they see at least $2t USD of Tokenized RWAs on chain by 2030, with the optimistic scenario being closer to $4t!

This is all on the back of Tether’s news. First they have begun the process of limiting issuance on EOS and Algorand. Additionally, they have announced that they are debuting a new synthetic dollar backed by Gold. 

Ethereum and the SEC’s complicated relationship seems to be coming to a close as Consensys, the original foundation behind Ethereum’s development, announced that the SEC is about to close its investigations into Ethereum 2.0.

On the back of Peter Thiel investing in the crypto betting site Polymarkets, they are breaking into mainstream media with the current speculation around the 2024 US Presidential election, 

One of the big drivers of weakness in Bitcoin has been the German Government onchain activities. I can’t find a primary source to say that they are actually selling BTC, but onchain activity shows the movements of nearly 6500 BTC to an unnamed address. 

In addition, creating downward pressure on BTC, Mt Gox Users have started to receive payments. More than 850,000 Bitcoin were lost in 2014, representing more than $9.4 billion worth of Bitcoin is owed to approximately 127,000 creditors of Mt. Gox. 

Memecoins, specifically those related to the 2024 presidential election, are by some early reports crashing as they reach mainstream coverage. 

However, it seems that being in the mainstream might have some benefits as BODEN has rebounded more than 15%. TREMP hasn’t seemed to benefit from this effect though, as at time of writing it is still down 15%

Lastly, in the world of EVM L2’s, Coinbase’s own Base has flipped Optimism to becoming the second largest layer 2 on Ethereum by Total Value Locked. 

Base’s meteoric rise has been partially credited to Coinbase’s ability to drive market adoption via its associated products such as Wallet and Exchange.

Macro news: The Fed news and US economic trends

On Tuesday, the U.S. dollar got a boost from hawkish comments by Federal Reserve officials and strong housing market numbers in the world’s largest economy. It looks like the Fed might hold off on cutting interest rates for now.

Investors are eyeing on jobless claims, home sales, and the latest GDP to figure out how strong the U.S. economy really is. Plus, everyone’s talking about the upcoming Biden-Trump debate and the French elections.

All of this will help investors guess when the Fed might decide to make its first rate cut, which many think will happen around September this year.

Over in Europe

The European Union has kicked off accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova.

One media outlet says Emmanuel Macron’s defeat would be a blow to Europe. It’ll be interesting to see how the French economy shapes up as their election approaches.

The market research GfK released Germany’s consumer confidence survey, predicting the sentiment index will improve to -18.9 in July from -20.9 in June.

And in Asia Pacific…

Asia Pacific growth has cooled compared to last year and slowed since 2019.

China’s 2024 GDP growth outlook is improving slightly to 4.8%, but there’s a slowdown expected in Q2.

In developed economies driven by domestic demand, higher interest rates and inflation have hit household spending power hard. In Japan, weak household consumption mirrors declining real incomes due to inflation.

Meanwhile, Australia and New Zealand are feeling the pinch of elevated rates and inflation, dampening both consumer spending and investment.

That’s a wrap for this week. 

Stay tuned for the next update.

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