👀Weekly Recap: Analysts Say Spot Bitcoin ETF Approval Looms

The Defiant's news articles, explainers, podcasts and videos published during the first week of 2024.

Happy weekend Defiers!

This week’s news cycle was dominated by spot Bitcoin ETF speculation, with prominent analysts predicting that the SEC will issue its first approvals next week. Researchers say spot Bitcoin ETFs would be highly bullish for BTC, with the funds set to directly invest in and hold Bitcoin on behalf of investors, unlike existing futures ETFs.

Despite the bullish sentiment, the markets suffered a violent flash crash that eradicated $100B from the combined crypto market cap on Jan. 3. While some onlookers blamed a report from Matrixport claiming the ETF applications will be rejected for the pullback, many researchers attributed the move to excessive leverage inevitably getting flushed from the digital asset markets.

Ethereum experienced a busy week, with core developers confirming the first testnet deployment for its forthcoming Dencun upgrade will go live on Goerli come Jan. 17. Follow-up testnet forks are also scheduled for Sepolia on Jan. 30 and Holseky on Feb. 7.

The exit queue for Ethereum stakers spiked to a record high of more than five days on Jan. 4 after Celsius announced it will unstake its sizable ETH holdings in preparation for asset distributions to creditors. Despite the looming threat that Celsius may offload more than $200M worth of Ether, market commentators are tipping that ETH could post impressive gains as investors bet on the possibility of a spot Ether ETF going live this year.

Yet Solana continues to challenge Ethereum’s dominance according to several key metrics, with Solana emerging as the top network by stablecoin volume in December as Google search traffic for “Solana” overtook “Ethereum.” Inflows to institutional products tracking SOL also outpaced ETH for 2023, although BTC products accounted for 84.5% of the $2.25B taken in by said products last year.

In markets news. the DeFi sector soared to fresh highs early in the week, with the sector’s market cap and total value locked tagging their highest level since Terra’s collapse unfolded in mid-2022.

The team behind Tellor found itself in hot water after the price of its TRB token tripled in a day amid a massive pump and dump. However, the gains evaporated in a single hour, with on-chain sleuths spotting a $2.4M TRB transfer from wallets associated with the Tellor team to Coinbase shortly before the token’s price peaked.

DYdX said it has engaged law enforcement after uncovering the identity of the perpetrator behind a market manipulation attack in November. However, critics representing the rival DeFi derivatives protocol, Synthetix, lambasted the dYdX team for resorting to “centralized” tactics after suffering losses enabled by the protocol’s parameters.

New IRS rules mandate that businesses report all transactions worth at least $10,000, including detailed information on transactional counterparties.

And in this week's podcast, Cami Russo spoke with Illia Polosukhin, the co-founder of Near Protocol, to learn about the projects future roadmap.

Enjoy!

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Podcast & Interviews

What is NEAR Protocol? | A Comprehensive Overview & Future Prospects

Cami Russo sat down with Illia Polosukhin, the co-founder of Near Protocol, a sharded, proof-of-stake, Layer 1 blockchain. Originally conceived as an Artificial Intelligence endeavor, NEAR underwent a transformation, pivoting its focus to become a crypto project.

The discussion explores Near's transition to crypto, core principles and underlying technology, and future roadmap for the project.

Saturday

DYdX In Talks With Perpetrator and Law Enforcement Over Recent Market Manipulation Attack DYdX announced it has engaged law enforcement after uncovering the identity of the perpetrator behind alleged market manipulation attacks that transpired in Q4 2023. The news has attracted criticism from rivals.

Friday

Institutional Investors Piled Into Bitcoin In 2023 Institutional crypto products took in $2.25B during 2023 — the third-highest inflow on record, according to CoinShares. BTC accounted for 84.5% of the total.
Ethereum’s Exit Queue Jumps To Record High As Celsius Unstakes The waitlist for Ethereum stakers seeking to exit the network has jumped to a record high as Celsius moves to unstake its ETH holdings. 16,283 validators were waiting to unstake as of Jan. 4.
Ethereum Developers Confirm Dencun Testnet Dates, Look To Following ‘Pectra’ Upgrade Ethereum developers wrapped up the first All Core Devs Execution (ACDE) call for 2024, locking in Dencun testnet deployments on Goerli for Jan. 17. Sepolia for Jan. 30, and Holesky for Feb. 7.

Thursday

Analysts Say Spot Bitcoin ETF Approvals Still Likely For Next Week SEC officials met with New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, and Chicago Board Options Exchange — major venues where proposed spot Bitcoin ETFs would trade — fueling speculation that the first spot Bitcoin ETFs will receive approval next week.
Inscriptions Activity Dries Up On EVM Chains The surging activity surrounding inscription protocols on networks supporting Ethereum Virtual Machine smart contracts has died down from an initial frenzy just a couple of weeks ago.

Wednesday

New IRS Rule Mandates Businesses Report Crypto Transfers Worth $10K+ A tax reporting rule targeting U.S. businesses took effect on Jan. 1. mandating that firms receiving more than $10,000 in crypto must report the transaction to the IRS under threat of facing felony charges.
Flash Crash! $100B Wiped From Crypto Market Cap In Three Hours A whopping $100B was wiped from the market cap of digital assets amid a sudden flash crash that drove $500M in liquidations over less than one hour.
Is Matrixport To Blame For The Violent Crypto Flash Crash? Some analysts attributed the sudden crypto crash to a Matrixport claiming the pending spot BTC ETFs will be rejected, while other blamed excessive leverage getting flushed from the digital asset markets.
Ether Supply Grows Amid Activity Lull During New Year Holidays Ethereum started the year with inflationary supply growth after spending the majority of 2023 as a deflationary coin. Ether’s supply grew by 3,051 coins in four days after tagging a record post-merge low on Dec. 30.
DeFi Market Cap Tags Highest Level Since Terra Collapse DeFi sector is mounting a comeback, with the sector’s market cap and total value locked rebounding to its highest level since mid-2022.

Tuesday

Solana Flips Ethereum By Stablecoin Volume and Google Search Traffic Solana continues to captivate the crypto community, with the surging Layer 1 blockchain posting several landmark milestones including record stablecoin volume and Google search traffic.
Orbit Bridge Suffers $81.6M Exploit Orbit Chain has become the latest cross-chain bridge to suffer a hefty exploit, with the protocol losing more than $81M worth of assets on Dec. 31. Orbit said it contact law enforcement in response to the hack.
Tellor Accused Of TRB Market Manipulation After Violent Pump and Dump The team behind Tellor is facing market manipulation accusations after its TRB token soared 172% in a day before the gains were wiped out within a single hour on Dec. 31.