Illustration by Mitchell Privier for Decryption.
The historic and highly anticipated approval of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) this week has essentially blocked out the sun for the rest of the cryptocurrency solar system, and frankly sparked a torrent of headlines on… Decryption.
All the theories and analyzes about what the approval will mean for the higher cryptocurrency value have finally been tested. Up or down? Priced or not? Will Bitcoin enter the next stage of its development, or will it simply be ignored? After all, spot bitcoin ETFs aren’t exactly new outside the US
On the question of high or low, the answer so far is both: Bitcoin’s price traded in a crowded room at $49,000 when the ETFs were approved. But a day later, the price dropped again to $43,000, a neighborhood it had been hanging around for a long time.
Bitcoin is trading at just under $43,000 now, down about 2% from where it was seven days ago. Over the past month, Bitcoin has been quite flat. But holders are still happy to see Bitcoin up more than 120% since this time last year.
The perpetual “far second” Ethereum token saw more green candles, by comparison, partly supported by a rise in the “wen ETH ETF?” There is now speculation about the existence of a Bitcoin version. Ethereum reached an 18-month high of around $2,700 yesterday.
ETH is trading at $2,568 today, up about 1% from this time yesterday. But over the past week, it has risen by more than 14%, and by more than 12% over the past month. The one-year return is about 80%. Ethereum scaling networks also had a strong week, with Arbitrum (ARB) up 22% and Optimism (OP) up 16%.
Elsewhere in the top five, Binance Coin (BNB) fell just under 2% this week while Solana posted a 2% gain. Some other bright spots in the cryptocurrency space include Tezos (XTZ) and Stacks (STX), both of which posted double-digit percentage gains over the past week.
Interestingly, Ethereum Name Service and its ENS token – last in the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap – had the best week, rising by almost 75% over the past seven days.
Edited by Andrew Hayward