IlluMyFi

Speculation over a potential approval of a Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) has apparently propelled the wider crypto market upward over the past week -- but several gaming and metaverse tokens have seen some of the largest gains amongst major cryptocurrencies, rebounding to claim sizable double-digit percentage boosts over the past week. GALA, the token of the Gala Games ecosystem, has been the biggest gainer amongst major gaming tokens over the past week, rising 42% to a current price of $0.02 per token according to CoinGecko. That's even with a nearly 7% dip over the past day after hitting its recent peak on Sunday afternoon. GALA remains nearly 98% off its peak price of $0.82 set in November 2021 as the wider crypto market hit an all-time high, but Sunday's peak was the highest price tracked for GALA since mid-August. Another big winner in the gaming space over the past seven days is AXS, the governance token of play-to-earn monster-battling game, Axie Infinity. AXS has jumped 28% over the past week to a current price of $5.76, as of this writing, and nearly touched $6.00 earlier Monday. Like GALA, it hit the highest price since mid-August. And stemming months of steady decline, ApeCoin (APE) -- the Ethereum-based token of the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem -- is up about 20% over the past week to a current price of $1.36. The price popped as high as $1.42 on Sunday, up from an all-time low price of $1.01 set earlier in October. ApeCoin will be used in Yuga Labs' Otherside metaverse game. MANA, the token of the Decentraland metaverse game, popped 21% this week to a current price above $0.37. And The Sandbox's SAND token is up almost 15% this past week to a current price of $0.35. Compare those to Bitcoin, which is up 10% over the last seven days at a price of about $34,330. Gala Games is the publisher of numerous NFT-based video games, including Champions Arena and the upcoming Mirandus and The Walking Dead: Empires. Some of the GALA token's sharpest gains last week came early Thursday ahead of the release of Legacy, a business simulator game from 22Cans, a studio formed by legendary developer Peter Molyneux.

Sentiment

Bearish/Bullish

11.01.24 07:57

by decrypt.co

Bitcoin ETFs Notch $1.9B in Trading Volume -- But Merrill Lynch, Vanguard Won't...

Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. are off to a raucous start. It's only midday, and already the 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs just yesterday approved by the SEC have combined for $1.9 billion worth of trading volume, exceeding analyst expectations. Despite spiking to nearly $49,000 just after markets opened in the U.S., Bitcoin was relatively subdued on Thursday. At the time of writing, it was changing hands at $46,610.54, according to CoinGecko. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust (FBTC) have far and away led the pack, accounting for 41% and 27% of that volume, respectively. These two ETFs alone have generated $1.3 billion in trading volume so far. Among the non-Wall Street set, the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) has done roughly $208 million -- about 13% -- of total volume by 1 p.m. ET on Thursday. In October, when the race to offer a Bitcoin ETF seemed to be just heating up, Adam Guren, the co-founder of crypto hedge fund Hunting Hill Digital, told Decrypt that blowout ETF launches aren't all that common. "Even attaining $500 million in day-one inflows as a noteworthy challenge," he said. Last week, Dave Nadig of VettaFi and co-author of "A Comprehensive Guide to Exchange-Traded Funds" told Decrypt that if the approved funds launched with the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust in the mix, then GBTC might soak up most of the volume -- but not for the reasons the firm might want. "Where the volume shows up is a little bit of a secret sauce, mystical union quest," Nadig said last week, adding that "if GBTC is included in that initial launch, it could get all the volume because there are a lot of people who are already in it that may want to unload it." The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) has accounted for $217 million worth of the opening day volume, approximately 12% of the total that's traded so far. But GBTC isn't a perfect 1:1 comparison to all the ETFs that just began trading today. GBTC began as an investment product available to accredited investors in 2013. As part of the SEC approvals yesterday, Grayscale was allowed to convert GBTC into a spot Bitcoin ETF. The Securities and Exchange Commission made history yesterday afternoon when it approved rules changes that would allow the Bitcoin ETFs to trade on the NYSE Arca, Nasdaq, and Cboe. The industry has been pushing for such products to be available to U.S. investors for the better part of a decade. That's because spot Bitcoin ETFs offer a way for investors to get exposure to BTC as an asset without having to actually buy and store the cryptocurrency. But the ease with which investors can now gain exposure to BTC through ETFs comes at a price. By design, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) charge a sponsor's fee -- which pays for all the overhead taken on by the issuer and management of assets. In the days leading up to yesterday's SEC approval, issuers played a dizzying game of fee limbo. After initially setting its fee at 0.30%, which analysts said was very competitive, BlackRock turned up the heat on...