Bitcoin has spiked late in the week after the US congress hashed out a deal to prevent a government shutdown.
Bitcoin saw a strong week of performance, beginning below $26,000 but rising steadily to spike late last night, surging close to $28,000 on the eToro platform, for a 7.4% gain over seven days.
Ether saw similarly strong activity over the week having begun around $1,550 but climbing to now trade above $1,700 – a 9.4% rise week-on-week.
Markets appear to have taken positively to the avoided shutdown in the US Government although it is a temporary reprieve. This week will see some potential news for markets to digest as Fed chair Jerome Powell speaks today, while we have an OPEC meeting on Wednesday with US jobs on Friday.
The Fed and oil prices have been consistently powerful macro influencers on the crypto market in the past couple of years. At the late stage of the rate hike cycle we’re in, the market is looking for further good news to push on but with oil prices rising again this could have a cooling effect on sentiment.
Valkyrie to start adding ether to ETF
Asset manager Valkyrie will begin adding ether futures to its Bitcoin Strategy ETF from tomorrow after gaining regulatory approval. The ETF will now combine bitcoin and ether futures holdings into one strategy and is the first to gain approval to do so.
We’re seeing a wave of providers of bitcoin futures ETFs look to expand their remits into the number two biggest cryptoasset in the world. The strategy shift underpins the continued appetite for cryptoasset-based investment products from institutional investors.
But it also underlines the growing sophistication of these institutional offerings and the desire to begin diversifying the investment strategies at work. Diversification is a really important tool for investors looking to take advantage of market opportunities, while preventing their portfolios from becoming overly focused in one area. Asset managers in the crypto space are now responding to this desire.
Ethereum founder considers blockchain changes
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has posted a blog considering potential changes to the way in which the Ethereum blockchain functions.
In the post he discusses the need for keeping the core code of the blockchain simplified to avoid ‘bloat’ and highlights concerns with the concentration of liquid staking. Liquid staking is one of the biggest growth areas of the Ethereum blockchain in the past few years, particularly thanks to development milestones such as the Merge.
But the market is heavily concentrated with a few providers, which is where Buterin focuses his case for reforming the blockchain to decrease centralisation and promote more competition. His conclusions for this are that the core protocols may need updating in order to improve the platform – something that could ultimately have wide-ranging effects on the blockchain and its associated cryptoasset.
VanEck to donate 10% of ether profits
Asset manager VanEck has said it would give 10% of the profits from its newly-launched ether ETF to the further development of the blockchain.
The firm’s ether-focused ETF is shortly set to launch after registering to trade futures contracts on commodities exchanges and will sit alongside its similar bitcoin ETF strategy. The firm has also filed for a spot price ETF, one among many, but for now, approval of these is still awaiting regulatory authorisation – something the market is still keen to see happen.
