BTC is currently trading around $64,900 and ETH around $3,500. Notable gainers in the last 24 hours are WIF, RUNE, and JUP. The global crypto market cap is $2.50T, up 0.1% over the last day. DeFi Total Value Locked is ~$99b and BTC dominance is around 55%.
Equity markets look to recover from a tough day yesterday, particularly in the US, where a rotation out of mega-cap tech stocks and into small caps saw the Nasdaq fall 2.8% in what amounted to its worst day since 2022. Notably, the European Central Bank left interest rates unchanged, as expected and after cutting rates in June. The ECB characterized domestic price pressure as “still high”, and suggested it will gauge incoming data before further changing monetary policy.
Yesterday also saw a flurry of amended S-1 registration statements from the US spot Ethereum ETF issuers, which revealed fees for the first time for most. Nearly all issuers are instituting initial fee waivers and then will charge 19-25 bps once the waivers run out. The one exception is Grayscale, which elected to keep its Ethereum Trust (ETHE) at 2.50% once it converts to an ETF, though will concurrently launch a mini trust ETF (ETH) with a 25 bps post-waiver fee. Such a move enables Grayscale to capture ETHE’s higher fee for holders who wish to remain in the fund due to a low tax basis or are not fee sensitive, but to also give holders a place to go for those who want a competitive fee and to give Grayscale a chance at capturing new AUM that comes into the space. In addition, the mini trust is being created via a 10% spinout of the $10b AUM ETHE, so it will start out with a considerable lead over peers at $1b in AUM.
Notable news includes: The Hong Kong Monetary Authority proposed rules for fiat-referenced stablecoins; Singapore’s Project Guardian tapped Moody’s for a tokenization risk analysis; Taiwan tightened its anti-money laundering regulations for virtual asset providers; bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi announced it will begin to distribute crypto to eligible clients this month and will continue to do so in batches over the coming months; tradfi custodian State Street is considering launching its own stablecoin; Chainlink launched the Digital Asset Sandbox to enable legacy financial firms to experiment with digital assets; Cipher Mining is reportedly exploring a potential sale after receiving takeover interest; Indian crypto exchange WazirX was hacked for $235m; KYC service provider Fractal ID experienced a data breach; SEC commissioner Peirce stated that spot Ethereum ETF staking is open to reconsideration; The TON Foundation launched the trustless Bitcoin bridge TON Teleport BTC; StarkWare verified a zero-knowledge proof on the Bitcoin test network Signet using the OP_CAT opcode; Polygon announced it will migrate MATIC tokens to POL in September; and, Polymarket added noted statistician Nate Silver as an advisor.
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Author:
Brian Rudick, Senior Strategist | Twitter, Telegram, LinkedIn
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