Bitcoin Price: US$33,922.73 (+2.58%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 1,784.98 (+1.11%)
Cryptocurrency markets witnessed significant price fluctuations when traders noticed BlackRock’s proposed Bitcoin ETF on the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.’s (DTCC) website. Bitcoin briefly surged above $35,000, with traders interpreting the listing as a sign of imminent approval. However, DTCC clarified that an ETF’s presence on its site is part of preparatory work and doesn’t indicate regulatory approval. Notably, the ETF had been listed on the site since August. Meanwhile, Grayscale Investments has partnered with FTSE Russell to introduce five crypto indexes tracking various sectors, coinciding with their efforts to convert Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into an ETF. Euroclear has also launched a tokenised securities issuance service in collaboration with the World Bank’s €100 million digital bond issuance, marking the convergence of traditional finance and digital assets, facilitating increased efficiency, reduced operational costs, and enhanced accessibility in financial markets.
Ledger, a cryptocurrency wallet manufacturer, has officially introduced its “Recover” feature, aimed at providing backup for users’ recovery seed phrases. This option is now available on Ledger’s popular wallet Nano X. Seed phrases are vital for regaining access to cryptocurrency wallets, but their loss can lead to unrecoverable digital assets. The “Recover” option encrypts users’ private keys, duplicates them, and stores them with Ledger, Coincover, and an independent backup service provider, providing enhanced security for users concerned about remembering their seed phrases. However, this feature has sparked controversy in the crypto community, with some users feeling it compromises privacy and security. Meanwhile, Mastercard is considering collaborations with self-custody wallet firms like MetaMask and Ledger, aiming to help these firms expand and offer payment card services. This move aligns with Mastercard’s efforts to bridge the gap between traditional and digital assets, as they are developing new card programs connecting Web2 and Web3. In another development, decentralised exchange (DEX) dYdX is open-sourcing its code for the v4 upgrade, marking a transition from an Ethereum layer-2 network to a standalone blockchain in the Cosmos ecosystem. The upgrade will make dYdX fully decentralised and community-operated, relinquishing the company’s control over the protocol and trading fees.
Galaxy Digital predicts that the launch of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States will lead to a 74.1% increase in Bitcoin’s price in the first year following their introduction. Galaxy Digital research associate Charles Yu estimated the total addressable market size for Bitcoin ETFs would be $14.4 trillion during the first year after launch. His prediction is based on assessing the potential price impact of fund inflows into Bitcoin ETF products, using gold ETFs as a baseline. If this prediction holds, it could see Bitcoin’s price rise to $59,200. These estimates are viewed as conservative and don’t factor in the potential second-order effects of a spot Bitcoin ETF approval. In another development, Vodafone Digital Asset Broker (DAB) has joined the Chainlink network to explore the exchange of trade documents across platforms, aiming to enhance document transfer and processing of financial transactions in the $ 32 trillion global trade ecosystem. Meanwhile, the excitement around the potential approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF has led to a notable increase in open interest on Deribit’s market, a prominent crypto derivatives platform, with the market’s COO attributing this surge to the anticipation of ETF news. Bitcoin’s price has surged more than 32% in the past month, further propelled by the news of BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF being listed on the DTCC’s website.
Source:
https://coindesk.com
https://cointelegraph.com
https://theblock.co
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