CRYPTO ASSETS

One of the possible explanations behind the sudden surge in the value of Bitcoin may be linked to the swelling hype surrounding the imminent approval of some spot Bitcoin ETF proposals of several Wall Street giants, which is anticipated to be announced by the SEC this week.

It was reported last week that the SEC may inform hopeful issuers this Tuesday or Wednesday whether they are cleared to launch their spot Bitcoin ETF.

Only Shiba and Bitcoin have maintained their status as the most popular tokens on India-based WazirX, consistently making it to the exchange's monthly ranking of the top four tokens.

Last week, U.S. prosecutors decided not to pursue additional charges against Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the fallen crypto empire FTX who was found guilty of seven counts of fraud in November.

For the first time since 2020, the amount stolen in crypto hacks is on a downtrend and is 50% lower than the amount pilfered by malicious actors in 2022.

Tether's strategic move to withdraw millions of dollars in Bitcoin has resulted in a staggering profit of $1.148 billion, recording a 68% profit margin.

The naming of the AP could be tricky, according to an ETF analyst because the SEC not only wants them identified in the documents but requires issuers to make the AP the underwriter of the spot Bitcoin ETF.

Dimon made headlines last month when he vocally criticized Bitcoin, the world's largest crypto asset by market capitalization, saying he would "close down" BTC if he was the one running the U.S. government as the crypto asset, along with other cryptocurrencies, is used by criminals.

Bitwise, one of the aspiring companies in the race, has recently submitted its updated S-1 Form, revealing its planned $200 million seed investment for its spot BTC offering.

With its recent price action, Solana ranks fifth in the list of the world's largest crypto assets by market capitalization, which is led by Bitcoin, the world's oldest asset.

Last week, it was reported that the SEC met with hopeful spot Bitcoin ETF issuers to iron out details of their filings and inform them of a deadline for submitting amended proposals on Dec. 29.

Judge Jed Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has granted summary judgment over the SEC's claim that Terraform Labs, the blockchain firm co-founded by Kwon, offered unregistered securities and security-based swaps.

Half of the proceeds from ARK Invest's GBTC sale, approximately worth $100 million, were used to purchase the BITO Bitcoin Futures ETF.

Worldcoin's efforts seem to have been paying off slowly, with its crypto WLD seeing impressive gains over the past 30 days.

Just four months after its initial launch, Shibarium has processed over 200 million transactions, highlighting the L2 blockchain's ability to handle large volumes of transactions efficiently.

The latest purchase places MicroStrategy's total Bitcoin holdings at 189,150 BTC, acquired at an aggregate price of $5.895 billion, at an average price of around $31,168 per BTC.

The 46-year-old billionaire, who founded Binance in 2017, has a net worth of $37.2 billion, which means his wealth saw a year-to-date increase of $24.6 billion.

Wood's ARK Invest is collaborating with 21Shares on Bitcoin and Ethereum Futures ETF products and its ARK 21 Shares Bitcoin ETF is among the first proposal subject to SEC's final decision on Jan. 10.

Like BlackRock and ARK, Grayscale also initially said it would use the in-kind creation and redemption model on its spot Bitcoin ETF. But as Wall Street giants ironed out details with the regulator – probably looking to be a part of the first wave of applications to be approved by the commission in the early part of January – almost all of them, surrendered.

In a Reddit thread, several users claimed to have received payments from the now-defunct Bitcoin exchange distributed via Japanese Yen-denominated refund on PayPal.

The newly minted USDT will not be introduced to the market right away but will serve as reserved tokens for future distribution needs or chain swaps whenever needed.

Silbert, who is the CEO of the Digital Currency Group -- the parent company of Grayscale -- resigned from his post effective Jan. 1, 2024.

Solana has flipped Binance Coin (BNB) and Ripple's XRP since Monday and continued to retain its spot as the fourth-largest crypto asset by market capitalization.

Bitget Research's chief analyst Ryan Lee explained that while Shibarium missed several key moments in the broader crypto market that could have impacted the price of Shiba Inu, it can still deliver on its promise if it can "attract users and developers."

When FTX declared bankruptcy in November 2022, many expected that Solana would not bounce back and would trade at a meager $10. However, it rose from the ashes and was trading above the $100 threshold.

The crypto exchange platform founded in July 2017 by its former CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) saw an 18% drop in its spot volume market share amongst centralized exchanges decline.

Transactions between $0.00 and $1.00 increased by 25.71% in the last 30 days, while transactions above $1 million saw a 150% spike in the same period.

The statement from MEXC came as there was widespread confusion due to the sudden removal of the X (formerly Twitter) account named "MEXC_CEO," which many believed to have belonged to the crypto exchange platform's chief executive officer John Chen Ju.

Over the past few weeks, several companies, including Blackrock and ARK, amended their S-1 registration with the SEC, to make it to the supposed first batch of approved spot Bitcoin ETF issuers.