2024-01-10 19:44

The exchange's website listed six bitcoin ETF applicants to start trading tomorrow. Cboe Global Markets said six spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds will be listed and start trading on its stock exchanges on Thursday. The Ark 21 (ARKB), Fidelity (FBTC), Franklin Templeton (EZBC), Invesco (BTCO), VanEck (HODL) and WisdomTree (BTCW) bitcoin ETFs appeared on the exchange operator's "New Listings" page on Wednesday. The listing doesn't mean that the ETFs will be approved by SEC. The commission still needs to approve the applicants' 19b-4 and S1 filings. "We are still awaiting SEC approval of our spot bitcoin ETFs," a Cboe spokesperson said. "The notices posted to our website are standard procedure in preparation of an ETF launch." For full coverage of bitcoin ETFs, click here. The notice comes ahead of potential official approval on Wednesday from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Approval of bitcoin ETFs would broaden bitcoin access to more investors, who wouldn't have to go to a crypto exchange, potentially providing an easier way to buy the world's largest digital asset. There are about a dozen applicants for bitcoin ETFs that are awaiting approval from the SEC. The battle to capture bitcoin ETF market share has already heated up between the applicants as peers continue to lower their fees ahead of the potential green light. Nikhilesh De contributed reporting. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/01/10/cboe-says-bitcoin-etf-to-start-trading-thursday-ahead-of-secs-official-approval/

2024-01-10 19:30

A hacked X/Twitter account and misunderstood filings make for a wild countdown to an expected approval. The crypto industry can breathe a sigh of relief: It looks like a federal U.S. regulator will let the world's largest traditional finance asset managers and other firms list and trade shares of a vehicle giving retail and institutional investors exposure to the price of a decentralized, trustless, stateless digital asset (if you're in the U.S.). But of course, the bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) drama wouldn't be complete without, well, drama. Stop it The narrative On Tuesday afternoon Eastern time, the official X (formerly Twitter) account belonging to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that all outstanding applications to list and trade shares of a spot bitcoin ETF had been approved. The problem was that none of these applications had been approved; the account was "compromised" and someone posted a 'shopped graphic. On Wednesday, Cboe BZX exchange started taking some additional steps to list and trade shares of spot bitcoin ETFs, further suggesting we may be close to an approval. Why it matters A spot bitcoin ETF is seen as a vehicle that retail traders can invest in (through everyday brokerage accounts) and institutional investors can access (because the shares are registered securities). Breaking it down Tea leaves First off: There are tons of little signs that suggest a spot bitcoin ETF is getting approved, probably later today. Cboe has filed acceleration requests to register that it will list and trade shares of various ETFs. It also sent letters out on Tuesday saying it planned to begin trading pending approvals. Fidelity's brokerage has started setting up pages for some of the ETFs that may launch as soon as Thursday morning. E-Trade later started doing the same, suggesting they're also preparing to let their customers buy and trade shares of these products. Combined with the back-and-forth between SEC officials and issuers, these signs all hint that an ETF may well launch – soon. And if one is approved, it's likely the entire slate will be allowed to go live. Confusion abounds Of course, this isn't crypto unless there's some ridiculous drama. On Tuesday, the SEC's X/Twitter page was compromised, leading to a tweet saying the ETFs were approved. X's Safety team claimed that an unknown party was able to gain control over the phone number associated with the @SECgov account, and that the account did not have the security measure known as two-factor authentication enabled. SEC officials have, as of the time of writing this, not responded to a request for comment on what happened or on the X statement. (Editor's note: I recommend enabling two-factor authentication on your accounts, especially in this day and age. You can use hardware keys like Yubikey or software tools like Authy or Google Authenticator, but token-based 2FA is better than text-messaging based 2FA. This is not an endorsement of any particular tool, just naming some examples.) On Wednesday, adding to the confusion, some individuals misinterpreted the filings from Cboe announcing its acceleration requests, saying those were in fact approvals. They're not – they're just procedural – but the filings again suggest the approvals may happen. What we might see If an ETF is approved, we may learn about it soon. Like, really soon. But officially, we'll know when the SEC declares a registration effective, which will likely first show up in its EDGAR database. "If the Commission declares a registration statement effective, that is reflected on EDGAR," an SEC spokesperson told me last week. "Any Commission 19b-4 orders will be posted on our website and then published in the Federal Register." This will probably happen somewhere between 4 p.m. ET (21:00 UTC) and 5:30 p.m. ET (22:30 UTC). Bloomberg Intelligence's Eric Balchunas set a range from 4-6 p.m. Either way, that's the magic window. An individual affiliated with one aspiring issuer said the recognitions may come earlier in the window, giving issuers a chance to file their post-effective amended statements announcing their intention to begin trading on Thursday morning. Those statements may come on Thursday morning itself, though, depending on timing. For the next few hours at least, we'll be in this weird limbo where all signs suggest an approval is imminent, but nothing is certain. Stories you may have missed North Korea Was Responsible for Over $600M in Crypto Thefts Last Year: TRM Labs: North Korea may have stolen some $600 million in crypto in 2023, bringing its total since 2017 to nearly $3 billion. National security officials have raised concerns about how North Korea may be using those stolen funds – namely, to develop weapons of mass destruction. Binance, KuCoin, Other Exchanges, Served Notice by Indian Government Removed From Apple’s App Store: Apple has removed apps on its Indian App Store tied to a number of exchanges that the Indian government is looking into. This week Monday 17:00 UTC (12:00 p.m. ET) The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Technology Advisory Committee voted to recommend a report on decentralized finance to the broader commission. Wednesday 19:00 UTC (2:00 p.m. ET) A House Financial Services subcommittee is holding a hearing on the Financial Stability Oversight Council, where crypto will come up. Elsewhere: (The Air Current) An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft lost a plug door shortly after takeoff last week, explosively decompressing and making an emergency landing a few minutes later. No one appears to have been seriously injured, and the Federal Aviation Administration has grounded all U.S.-based MAX 9 aircraft pending further inspections. Preliminary inspections by Alaska and United have already identified loose bolts (Disclosure: I'm invested in Boeing shares). If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at [email protected] or find me on Twitter @nikhileshde. You can also join the group conversation on Telegram. See ya’ll next week! https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/01/10/bitcoin-etf-confusion-abounds/

2024-01-10 14:48

Jokester pays $2.97 to record the one-liner "SEC Chairman on the brink of second ETF approval" on the blockchain. As speculation swells to a fever pitch over the imminent approval of bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETF) in the U.S., one clever jokester has apparently gone to the lengths of memorializing the hype into the world's largest blockchain. With analysts speculating that the approval could come as soon as Wednesday and that the vehicles theoretically could start trading as early as Thursday, one Bitcoin user posted a transaction late Tuesday that included the encoded message, "SEC Chairman on the brink of second ETF approval." The sentence was embedded using Bitcoin's OP_RETURN function, which makes a transaction unspendable but allows for data up to 80 bytes. According to the website mempool.space, which tracks activity on the Bitcoin blockchain, the fee paid was $2.97. The SEC has been at the center of intense speculation not only because of the regulator's longstanding opposition to a spot Bitcoin ETF, but also a hack on Tuesday of its official Twitter account that led to a fake posting of an approval announcement, roiling crypto markets. The choice of wording for Tuesday's Bitcoin transaction stunt recalls the message purportedly embedded into the blockchain's original "Genesis" block in 2009, a headline from British newspaper The Times that read: "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/01/10/bitcoin-etf-chaos-memorialized-on-blockchain-with-nod-to-chancellors-on-the-brink-reference/

2024-01-10 09:46

BlackRock had previously filed an S-1 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its iShares Ethereum Trust, a spot ether exchange-traded fund (ETF). Ether (ETH) and native tokens of applications built on Ethereum surged in the past 24 hours as traders bet on the likelihood of the possible proposal of an ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) following the expected approval of a bitcoin ETF in the U.S. Ether exchanged hands over $2,400 in early European hours Wednesday, up 5% in 24 hours. Bitcoin was down 2.2% in the same period as a series of fake tweets from the temporarily hacked U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's X account, which created significant volatility in bitcoin trading. BlackRock had previously filed an S-1 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its iShares Ethereum Trust, a spot ether exchange-traded fund (ETF). Sentiment in the crypto community suggests traders are positioning themselves for an eventual ether-focused product – which could be the first time professional investors in the U.S. gain spot exposure to the blockchain’s token without having to own it. “There’s a noticeable trend towards frontrunning the ether ETF,” Alex Onufriychuk, the CEO of Kaminari, said in a Telegram message. Lido’s LDO and RocketPool’s RPL gained as much as 17% before retreating. Both protocols allow users to stake ether on their platforms and earn around 4.5% in annualized staking rewards. Elsewhere, tokens of layer 2 networks such as Mantle’s MNT and Optimism’s OP gained as much as 9%. These networks are built atop Ethereum but operate as independent blockchains, allowing users to transact cheaply and much faster than the main blockchain. However, market observers cautioned that an ether ETF remained a probability rather than a possibility as of Wednesday. "The main idea is that ETH, being the second largest cryptocurrency, would have the highest probability of being the next ETF after BTC,” Martin Lee, analyst at on-chain data firm Nansen, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message. But some stated that select tokens could gain in the coming days. "Tokens in the ETH ecosystem like LIDO, ENS, and MKR experienced sharp up moves which should continue to take the attention away from BTC as traders now must position for the possibility of an ETH ETF," said Jack Tan co-founder of crypto exchange WOO X, in a Telegram message. Thirteen issuers, including traditional finance giants BlackRock and Fidelity, are currently in line for a spot bitcoin ETF whose approval is widely anticipated later on Wednesday. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/01/10/ether-jumps-over-24k-as-traders-bet-on-possible-ether-etf-next/

2024-01-10 09:08

Puts are overbought and calls [are] being sold, Deribit's CCO Luuk Strijers told CoinDesk, noting the decline in the bitcoin implied volatility index. Traders are seeking protection from a potential bitcoin (BTC) price drop, leading crypto options exchange Deribit’s Chief Commerical Officer Luuk Strijers said Monday. “Puts are overbought and calls are being sold, indicating the market is seeking protection from potential price declines,” Strijers told CoinDesk in an interview. Put options allow buyers to profit from or hedge against a decline in the asset’s price. Call options allow buyers to profit from price rallies. On Deribit, one options contract represents one BTC. The one-month BTC call-put skew has flipped negative in the past 24 hours, reaching a low of -2.69% for the first time since Oct. 13, according to data tracked by Amberdata. The one-week, two-and three-month skews have also turned negative to show renewed demand to hedge against bitcoin weakness. Skew measures the difference in demand for calls and puts. Perhaps traders expect bitcoin to drop in a classic “sell the fact” move following the highly-anticipated SEC approval of spot bitcoin ETFs later Wednesday. Some may be worried about a potential delay in approvals. The cryptocurrency has rallied over 60% since early October, largely on expectations the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will greenlight one or more spot ETFs in early 2024. “Buy the rumor, sell the fact,” an old Wall Street adage, represents the idea that traders tend to buy an asset in anticipation of positive news, eventually closing their positions once the news is confirmed. The so-called spot ETFs investing in bitcoin rather than its futures are widely expected to pave the way for mass adoption, boosting the cryptocurrency’s market valuation. “We look for $50 billion-$100 billion of inflows into bitcoin ETFs in 2024, opening up the potential for BTC to reach the $200,000 level by the end of 2025,” Standard Chartered said in a note to clients on January 8. DVOL drops Deribit’s forward-looking bitcoin volatility index (BTC DVOL), which calculates bitcoin’s annualized 30-day implied volatility or expectations for price turbulence over the next four weeks from options data, has declined ten points from 73% to 63% since Monday. Strijers said that traders have been selling calls and call spreads in January expiry contracts, driving the DVOL. Note that short-term implied volatility metrics like the seven-day gauge remain elevated above 100 or 50 points above the DVOL, signaling expectations for price turbulence in the immediate aftermath of the SEC decision. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/01/10/bitcoin-traders-seek-protection-from-price-declines-as-etf-deadline-looms-deribit/

2024-01-10 07:30

Those tweets caused bitcoin prices to immediately spike to $47,680 from the $46,800 level. It then fell as low as $45,400 as the tweets were found to be fake. Price volatility following a series of fake tweets from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s X account caused nearly $90 million worth of bitcoin (BTC) long and short positions to be liquidated, showcasing manipulation risks associated with the industry. Hackers caught hold of SEC’s X account on Tuesday, using it to post a nod for the much-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval decision. It later posted “$BTC,” before both tweets were promptly deleted. Those tweets caused bitcoin prices to immediately spike to $47,680 from the $46,800 level. It then fell as low as $45,400 as the tweets were found to be fake. Punters and automated bots, however, reacted quickly to the tweets. Over $500 million in futures positions were opened in a ten-minute period following the initial post, data shows. But the highly-levered positions took a hit as prices whipsawed: Some $50 million in longs were liquidated while $36 million in shorts were impacted. Liquidation refers to when an exchange forcefully closes a trader’s leveraged position due to a partial or total loss of the trader's initial margin. It happens when a trader is unable to meet the margin requirements for a leveraged position (fails to have sufficient funds to keep the trade open). Such data is beneficial for traders as it serves as a signal of leverage being effectively washed out from popular futures products – acting as a short-term indication of a decline in price volatility. A decision on thirteen proposed bitcoin ETFs is expected on Wednesday, with Bloomberg analysts placing approval odds at over 90% and crypto market bettors a relatively smaller 85%. Meanwhile, some crypto market participants criticized the SEC’s seemingly lax security measures to protect its account – even asking how the financial regulator could safeguard trillion-dollar markets if it couldn’t protect its social accounts. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/01/10/fake-bitcoin-etf-approval-tweet-causes-90m-in-liquidations/