📈Weekly Recap: Spot Bitcoin ETFs Outperform

The Defiant's news articles, explainers, podcasts and videos published between Jan. 15 and Jan. 21

Happy weekend Defiers!

The impressive performance of the freshly launched cohort of spot Bitcoin ETFs dominated headlines this week.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs hosted a $1.3B inflow during their first four days of trading, bringing the value of assets under management (AUM) to $27.7B. The sector ranks as the second-largest commodity ETF asset class, beating out silver’s $11.3B and lagging behind gold with $93.8B. Trading volumes have also exceeded expectations, with the first four days hosting roughly $12B worth of spot Bitcoin ETF share trades.

The Bitcoin ETFs’ launch also had a significant impact on the broader crypto markets. Despite the long-awaited approval of the ETFs, their launch triggered a sell-on-the-news event. The price of BTC is down nearly 15% from its local top on Jan. 11, with Ether and leading altcoins holding up far stronger than Bitcoin.

Miners offloaded $4.7B worth of BTC in the run-up to and aftermath of the SEC approving the funds last week. Institutional crypto products also hosted a massive $17.5B worth of trades last week, driving $1.2B worth of inflows.

It was also a big week for Ethereum and its broader ecosystem. Analysts are tipping that spot Ether ETFs may be approved this year, driving down the discount of Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust.

The network’s upcoming Dencun upgrade is now live on the Goerli testnet. While the fork initially resulted in a network split due to an error with the Prysm client, the upgrade has since been finalized and developers say all issues encountered amid the fork have been patched.

A spike in on-chain activity pushed Ethereum’s throughput to new heights, with 22.7 transactions per second or 2M transactions in 24 hours getting executed on Jan. 14. The waitlist for validators leaving the network also cleared after spiking to all-time highs last week as Celsius moved to unstake its sizable Ether holdings.

Ethereum’s nascent liquid restaking sector is booming amid the rise of EigenLayer. The top three liquid restaking protocols now boast a combined TVL of more than $450M. In other staking news, the popular MetaMask wallet launched a non-custodial staking service, allowing users to run their own validator node.

DYdX, the leading decentralized perpetuals exchange, overtook Uniswap to rank as the top DEX by daily trade volume with $800M. The milestone follows the launch of dYdX v4 as a Cosmos appchain in November.

The first hearing in the legal battle between the SEC and Coinbase appeared to yield positive results, with many analysts tipping that the court will side with Coinbase and the broader digital asset sector against the outspoken securities regulator.

Moody’s, the global investment risk assessment firm, published a report celebrating the efficiency benefits associated with tokenization. Moody’s noted that the tokenized fund sector ballooned from $100M to $800M in 2023.

And in this week’s podcast, Cami Russo spoke with Matt Hougan, the CIO of Bitwise, to learn more about what the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs means for the landscape of web3 and traditional finance.

Enjoy!

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Podcast & Interviews

Mastering the Crypto Bull Market with Fiskantes

Joined by Ivan of LobsterDAO, we spoke with Fiskantes, the popular pseudonymous trader and founder of Zee Prime Capital, to discuss the dominant narratives driving the web3 markets.

The discussion explores expectations for the post-Bitcoin ETF landscape, the flourishing Layer 1 scene, Fiskantes' bullish outlook for Polkadot, and his broad predictions for the web3 markets in 2024.

Podcast & Interviews

The Real Impact of Bitcoin ETFs on Markets: Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan

Cami Russo was joined by Matt Hougan, the CIO of Bitwise, a crypto index fund manager and Bitcoin ETF issuer. Hougan is a renowned figure in the financial sector, known for his expertise in cryptocurrency and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

The discussion explores Matt's initial reaction to the BTC ETF launch, the expected inflows for 2024, and the often underestimated impacts of these developments. He also touches on the evolution of Bitcoin ETFs, the likelihood of Ethereum ETFs receiving regulatory approval, and the growing understanding of Ethereum in traditional finance. Finally, we touch on the centralization risks of Bitcoin, the future of Bitcoin ETFs, and his Bitcoin price forecast.

Friday

Arbitrum Launches Program Supporting Custom Chain Development The Arbitrum Foundation unveiled a new program enabling the launch of bespoke Layer 2 and Layer 3 networks built on top of the Arbitrum Orbit tech stack.
Spot Bitcoin ETF Inflows Top $1.3B As Sector’s AUM Beats Out Silver The freshly-launched cohort of Bitcoin ETFs have surpassed $1B worth of inflows in their first four days of trading, despite persistent heavy outflows from Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ETF.

Thursday

MANTA Airdrop Leaves DeFi Community Fuming Manta users are unhappy after receiving meager allocations from the token's highly-anticipated airdrop.
ONDO Token Reaches Over $1B Market Cap in One Day Ondo's new token is trading at a $2B fully diluted valuation one day after launching. The token allows holders to govern the parameters of Flux Finance.
dYdX Becomes Top DEX By Daily Volume The DYdX decentralized perpetuals exchange has overtaken Uniswap with daily trade volume exceeding $800M.
Solana Memecoin WIF Hits All-time High On Binance Listing The Solana-based memecoin, dogwifhat (WIF), surged to an all-time high of $0.49 earlier today after Binance announced that it will list perpetual futures for the asset.
Moody’s Vouches For Efficiency Benefits Of Tokenization Moody's said the value of tokenized funds increased from $100M to $800M in 2023 in a new report espousing the benefits and risks of tokenization.
MetaMask Introduces Validator Staking for Ethereum MetaMask launched Validator Staking on MetaMask Portfolio, allowing users to run their own Ethereum validator node.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs Drive ‘Insane’ $9.8B In Volume Over Three Days The 10 spot Bitcoin ETFs hosted nearly $10B worth of activity in their first three days of trading.
Dencun Finalizes On Goerli After Rocky Fork Ethereum's forthcoming Dencun upgrade is now live on the Goerli testnet after initially suffering a network split.
Crypto Advocates See Coinbase’s SEC Hearing as a “Step Forward” Today’s hearing on the SEC's landmark case against Coinbase led many in the crypto community to believe that the court may side with the crypto exchange and digital asset industry.

Wednesday

More Than Half Of Crypto Is Dead: CoinGecko Of the 24,000 tokens cryptocurrency listed on CoinGecko since 2014, 14,039 are now defunct, according to a new report from the data aggregator.
AltLayer To Launch Token On Jan. 25 AltLayer, a decentralized protocol specializing in rollup networks, plans to launch its native ALT token on Jan. 25.
Dymension Airdrop Claim To End In Four Days Claims for Dymension's airdrop to Cosmos, Solana, and Ethereum Layer 2 users close on Jan. 21.
Unstoppable Domains Launches Token Gated Group Chats Unstoppable Domains teamed up with Push Protocol to create Unstoppable Messaging, a token-gated decentralized messaging platform.
Emerging Liquid Restaking Sector Approaches Half-Billion TVL The surging popularity of EigenLayer, the pioneering Ethereum restaking protocol, is giving rise to an emerging liquid restaking sector.
Socket Resumes Operations After Users Lost $3.3M To Exploit The Socket cross-chain interoperability protocol has resumed operations after its users suffered a $3.3M exploit.

Tuesday

Investors Ponder Ether ETF as ETHE Discount Shrinks The discount on Grayscale Ethereum Trust shares is narrowing as spot Ether ETF speculation swirls.
Miners Offloaded $5B of Bitcoin Into ETF Launch Bitcoin miners sold $4.7B worth of BTC in the lead up and aftermath of the SEC approving the first spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Solana Mobile Opens Preorders for New Smartphone Buyers can now pre-order the second Solana Mobile smartphone for $450. The phone is expected to ship in 2025.
Institutional Crypto Trading Tops $17B During ETF Launch Week, Highest On Record Institutional crypto products hosted $17.5B in trade volume and $1.2B worth of inflows during the week that the SEC approved the first spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Mantle Launches V2 Iteration On Testnet Following Impressive Growth Mantle's v2 iteration is live on the Sepolia testnet, paving the way for the network to adopt Optimism's OP Stack.
Ethereum Throughput Tags Record High As Burn Rate Drives Down ETH Supply Ethereum processed a record throughput of 22.7 transactions per second on Jan. 14, equating to nearly 2M transactions in 24 hours.
Metis Launches Decentralized Sequencer On Testnet Following Meteoric Growth Metis is trialling a decentralized sequencer on the Sepolia testnet. The move comes after its TVL grew 776% in four weeks.

Monday

BTC Underperforms ETH and Altcoins As Investors Sell Bitcoin After ETF Approval The price of BTC tumbled 12% from its Jan. 11 high as the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs manifested as a sell-on-the-news event.
Circle Releases USDC ‘State of Economy’ Report As Market Cap Rebounds Circle said its USDC stablecoin is enjoying an increase in adoption from mainstream financial institutions.
CoinShares Predicts Post-Halving Miner Exodus CoinShares predicts many inefficient Bitcoin miners will go offline after the halving, estimating it will cost $37,856 on average to mine a single BTC.
Ethereum Exit Queue Clears As Celsius Rebalances Assets Ethereum's validator queue emptied after soaring to a record high as Celsius moved to unstake its Ether ahead of creditor distributions.