Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.
This week's historic and highly anticipated Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval has essentially blocked out the sun for the rest of the crypto solar system and, frankly, sparked a deluge of headlines on Decrypt.
All theories and analyzes about what the approval would mean for the value of the top cryptocurrency were finally put to the test. Top or bottom? Priced in or not? Would Bitcoin enter the next phase of its development or just shrug its shoulders? After all, Bitcoin spot ETFs aren't exactly new outside the US
To the question of up or down, the answer so far is both: When the ETFs were approved, the price of Bitcoin was flirting with $49,000 in a crowded space. However, a day later, the amount dropped back down to $43,000 – a spot he's been hovering around for a while.
Bitcoin is currently trading just under $43,000, down about 2% from where it was seven days ago. Over the past month, BTC has been completely flat. But hodlers are still rejoicing that Bitcoin is up over 120% since this time last year.
There were comparatively more green candles in the eternal “distant second” Ethereum, which was partly due to a rise in the “Who ETH ETF?” Speculation now that the Bitcoin version exists. Ethereum hit an 18-month high of nearly $2,700 yesterday.
ETH is changing hands at $2,568 today, up about 1% from this time yesterday. But in the last week it is up over 14% and in the last month it is up more than 12%. 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) is down almost 2% this week, while Solana is up 2%. Other bright spots in the crypto space include Tezos (XTZ) and Stacks (STX), both of which posted double-digit percentage gains last week.
Interestingly, Ethereum Name Service and its ENS token – at the bottom of the list of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization – had the best week, registering a nearly 75% increase in the last seven days.
Edited by Andrew Hayward