With U.S. spot Ethereum (ETH) ETFs now a realistic prospect, some experts are questioning whether their approval will impact the market as much as a Bitcoin (BTC) equivalent.
Bitwise – the world’s largest crypto index fund manager – says they won’t be. In conversation with CryptoPotato, the firm’s analyst Juan Leon explained why.
Ignorance Of Ethereum
According to Leon, while many institutional investors have grown more informed and receptive to BTC as an investment asset, most still don’t understand what makes its flashier younger sibling any different.
“Even investors who can differentiate between both have a hard time thinking about their place in a portfolio,” wrote Leon in an email to CryptoPotato. “Advisors find it helpful when we explain that BTC can be contemplated

Commerzbank AG – the fourth largest bank in Germany – has received its Crypto Custody License after unveiling plans to break into digital asset safekeeping almost two years ago.
This makes Commerzbank the first full-service bank in Germany to receive the license.
Commerzbank Enters Crypto Custody
Per a press release on Wednesday, the bank’s new license opens it to launching a “broad range” of new digital asset services, especially pertaining to crypto assets.
Its first goal will be to establish a reliable, regulatory-compliant platform for its institutional clients to manage their crypto.
According to the bank’s Chief Operating Officer, Dr Jörg Oliveri del Castillo-Schulz, securing the license marks an “important milestone” for its entry into the industry.

“This

Bitcoin (BTC) plummeted back to $35,100 on Tuesday after briefly rallying as high as $38,000 late last week.
The collapse has triggered over $367 million in liquidations across the crypto market in the past 24 hours.
According to Coinglass, over $200 million in liquidations have occurred in the past hour alone.
Across the day, over 103,000 traders have been liquidated, with the largest being a BTC-USDT swap on OKX valued at $9.45 million.
Bitcoin started the day trading for roughly $36,700, pumping in response to better-than-expected U.S. CPI data. However, it trades for roughly $35,400 at writing time.
Bitcoin traded at an 18-month high of $37,800 last Thursday as excitement over a potential spot Bitcoin ETF approval in the United States continued to rage.
However, JP

Uniswap has rolled out the completed version of its wallet app to all Android users following a brief beta testing period that began last month.
The app brings a simple mobile user interface to its decentralized exchange (DEX), which is currently the largest in the entire crypto ecosystem.
Per Uniswap’s announcement on Tuesday, app users will be able to swap tokens across 8 different blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, and Arbitrum, all while managing their tokens and NFTs in one place.
Users can also track other traders and view balances “in 6 new languages & 18 new currencies.”Furthermore, swaps on the app will be protected from MEV, meaning they’ll be placed into a private transaction pool and are thus shielded from frontrunning and “sandwich attacks.”

The price of XRP soared from $0.65 to $0.73 on Monday following news that asset management giant BlackRock had registered the iShares XRP Trust in Delaware.
However, later reports confirmed that the supposed registration was fake news, taking XRP’s price back down to $0.65.
According to the state of Delaware’s website, there is an entity registered under file number 2619091 going by the name of “iShares XRP Trust.”
While the filing appears to be under the name of a BlackRock executive using BlackRock’s address, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas confirmed that BlackRock hadn’t actually filed any such registration.

“This is false! Confirmed by BlackRock by me,” Balchunas posted to X on Monday. Some whacko must have added using the BlackRock executive name, etc.”

The

Bitcoin mining firm Core Scientific filed a disclosure statement for its third-amended bankruptcy recovery plan on Monday, which incorporates key terms from its Restructuring Term Sheet filed in late October.
The new filing features a concrete timeline for how the firm will gain support for the plan from key stakeholders and emerge from bankruptcy before January 15.
Final Stages of Bankruptcy
Per the Monday filing, the debtors plan to “move forward expeditiously” with gathering votes and confirming its plan to keep administrative costs to a minimum.
A hearing on the conditional approval of Core Scientific’s plan will occur on Tuesday. Holders of claims or interest will then have until December 13 to vote on the plan, with another hearing to confirm final approval of the

A longtime Bitcoin investor and his father discovered last week that they were robbed of ~25 BTC ($919,000) in September that the family had held in a personal wallet since 2012.
The online Bitcoin community is now coming to their aid, with the victim proposing a 23 BTC bounty to anyone who can recover the funds.
Insecure Private Keys
In a video from X user @RMessit (aka Rick) on Saturday, the victim said that his Bitcoin wallet’s private key was kept in a self-hosted password manager called KeePass.
The KeePass vault could only be unlocked via another password, which was only known by the two men. However, this password only contained 30 bits – far lower and less secure than that of a standard Bitcoin private key itself, which is 256 bits.
Though still unsure of how his

Binance’s dominance over the centralized crypto exchange market has weakened over the past year, according to a new report from 0xScope.
Estimates from the blockchain analytics firm suggest that Binance’s trading volume and other indicators are “around 10% lower overall,” while competition from OKX and other “second-tier exchanges” grows stiffer.
Binance’s Second Tier Competitors
Per the report, Binance is still the clear leader in terms of global crypto volume, accounting for 51.2% of CEX volume share between October 17, 2022, and October 17, 2023.
That volume has declined on a week-by-week basis, however. Standing at 54.6% in October 2022, Binance’s dominance has fallen to roughly 45% since July.
Meanwhile, OKX’s volume share has skyrocketed from 10.5% last year to 16.1%

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is struggling to recruit and retain crypto experts due to internal hiring restrictions, according to a new report from the agency’s Inspector General.
The statement comes at a time when the SEC is highly focused on reigning in the blockchain industry, which its chairman Gary Gensler has described as “largely non-compliant.”
Experts Won’t Sell Their Crypto
Per the Inspector General’s Statement on the SEC’s Management and Performance Challenges on Thursday, the SEC “faces challenges in recruiting specialists in crypto assets” for investigation and enforcement purposes.
The SEC has launched over 50 enforcement actions against crypto industry firms this year, including global crypto exchange giants like Coinbase and Binance.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has fired back at Binance’s recent motion to dismiss the regulator’s lawsuit against the exchange, calling the latter’s arguments a “tortured interpretation of the law.”
In an 88-page filing with the DC Circuit on Tuesday, the agency argued that Binance had ignored most of its core allegations in a “bid to evade accountability” for its alleged violations of securities law.
Countering Binance’s Theatrics
In its preliminary statement, the SEC cited a quote mentioned in its original lawsuit, in which Binance’s Chief Compliance Officer said the company was “operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.”
“Defendants now seek to avoid the repercussions of their actions by asking this Court to dismantle

Crypto returned to the limelight of financial markets in 2023 – but for a reason less flattering than skyrocketing crypto prices.
A new report from the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) shows that crypto-related charges accounted for over half of the agency’s total enforcement actions this year.
Cracking Down on Crypto
In its 2023 enforcement results report, the CFTC said it “brought 47 actions involving conduct related to digital asset commodities,” accounting for over 49% of all actions during the period.
In total, the agency’s actions generated “$4.3 billion in penalties, restitution, and disgorgement” over the fiscal year.
“[The CFTC] filed high-profile complaints addressing frauds by major exchanges, individual Ponzi-schemers, and others,” wrote the

The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) – the largest existing Bitcoin ETF in the United States – has absorbed a quarter of a billion dollars worth of flows over the past month.
This marks the fund’s second-best-performing month next to its launch date, signaling fierce anticipation over an incoming spot ETF approval.
Revival of Futures ETFs
As shared by Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas on X, the value of BITO’s assets has nearly doubled over the last 30 days from ~$850 million in early October to $1.37 billion as of November 10.
While most of that appreciation was due to Bitcoin (BTC)’s surging price over that period, about $240 million worth of growth was due to concrete inflows.
The predicted added that the fund may be on track to break its trading volume record,

Over 175 different tokens with valuations exceeding $10,000 were stolen as part of a massive hack against the U.S.-based crypto exchange Poloniex on Friday, according to on-chain data.
Since earlier today, estimates of the funds stolen in the hack have expanded to $125 million.
What Hackers Took From Poloniex
According to an X post from Nansen, some of the largest Ethereum-based outflows from Poloniex in the past 24 hours have included $11 million in Tether USD (USDT), and $10.4 million in Ether (ETH), and $5 million worth of USD Coin (USDC).
The exchange also lost substantial value in memecoins, including $6 million worth of Dogelon Mars (ELON) and $4.7 million in Shiba Inu (SHIB). Other losses included $3.1 million in Open Exchange Token (OX) and $2.5 million in Golem

Consistent, diligent Bitcoin (BTC) buyers who have stacked sats for two years have greatly outperformed investors in other asset classes – despite entering the crypto market at one of the worst possible times.
As of Thursday, dollar cost averaging Bitcoin since November 10, 2021, has put buyers 40% in the green.
Bitcoin DCA Is The Way
To dollar cost average (DCA) is to consistently buy Bitcoin in equal amounts of fiat currency at regular time intervals (daily, weekly, etc) irrespective of the asset’s price.
It’s a popular investment strategy for those wishing to ease the burden of timing a volatile market and intending to use BTC as a long-term savings vehicle.
According to Dylan LeClair – Market Intelligence Expert for UTXO Management – this strategy hasn’t been as

BlackRock may be preparing to launch a spot Ethereum (ETH) ETF amid roaring confidence that its spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETF application is all but certain, a new company registration suggests.
The price of ETH has soared 8% on the day to $2,020.
As shown by @SummersThings on Twitter, BlackRock registered a corporation named the “iShares Ethereum Trust” in Delaware on Thursday.
The name rings similar to its iShares Bitcoin Trust, a spot Bitcoin ETF product currently under review by regulators.
The latter was registered in Delaware just one week before BlackRock officially filed for its Bitcoin ETF in June, meaning its latest Ethereum Trust filing may be followed by the same.
The June filing caused Bitcoin’s price to roar to $30,000 at the time, and inspired close to a dozen

Bitcoin (BTC)’s massive gains this year have done little to bring crypto day traders back into the market, according to data provided by Bitstamp.
Since the start of the year, retail training volume on the exchange’s US platform has grown to 35% from 33%, while global retail volume has only risen from 8% to 9%.
Where are the Day Traders?
In conversation with Bloomberg, numerous pro traders claim to have lost interest in crypto despite once making tremendous profits in the space – particularly after the collapse of FTX in November 2022.
Peter To, for instance – a 34-year-old professional stock trader in New York – said he made $1 million trading Bitcoin during its bull runs in 2013 and 2017. However, the asset’s 110% rise since January hasn’t been enough to bring him back

Bitcoin is a store of value currency and inflation hedge likable to “exponential gold,” wrote Jurrien Timmer, Head of Global Macro at Fidelity, in a post to X on Wednesday.
The analyst argued that both Bitcoin and gold boast distinct but attractive risk/reward ratios right now and that both may be players on the “same team” regarding their investment theses.
Gold Versus Bitcoin: A Historic Look
As outlined by Timmer, Bitcoin began is rallying again this year in line with “the pattern of previous boom and bust cycles.”
The asset reclaimed $35,000 per BTC on Wednesday, with market participants excited over a potential spot Bitcoin ETF approval within the next two months. It’s also arguably rallied as a “flight to quality” for savers as the market loses faith in long-dated

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is calling for a conclusion to its legal battle with Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon, calling on a Manhattan judge to deliver summary judgment in the case.
In the agency’s view, the evidence “is clear, undisputed and overwhelming,” that the crypto mogul violated securities laws in the distribution of the Terra blockchain’s native cryptocurrency, LUNA, and its now defunct stablecoin TerraUSD (UST).
Do Kwon’s Lies, According to the SEC
Per the SEC’s Friday court filing, Kwon and Terraform schemed to “defraud” the public about the safety of its protocol and tokens – as well as the degree to which they were actually used.
For example, the firm falsely claimed that Terra had partnered with Chai, a popular Korean online

Shares for Jack Dorsey’s fintech giant Block (SQ) surged by 12% to $49.19 on Friday after the company published bullish third-quarter earnings figures a day prior.
That includes increased Bitcoin revenue at the company’s payment subsidiary, Cash App, which reeled in 37% more income than during the same period last year.
Block is Back
Per the Thursday report, Block’s total net revenue rose by 24% year over year to $5.62 billion. When excluding “Bitcoin revenue”, this figure shrinks to $3.19 billion, up 16% since Q3 2022.
Bitcoin revenue is generated by Cash App’s sales of BTC to customers. Only 2% of that revenue – which totaled $2.42 billion – is actually kept by the company as gross profit, amounting to $45 million this quarter.
Across the company, Block’s earnings per

MicroStrategy’s Executive Chairman Michael Saylor spoke with CNBC on Thursday about the future of regulation and corporate adoption for Bitcoin (BTC), shortly after his company announced a $5.3 million BTC purchase last month.
While the billionaire maintained that “you can never have too much Bitcoin,” he also claimed that “big banks” will be necessary for the asset to reach full maturity.
Bitcoin Needs Big Banks?
During his interview, Saylor acknowledged some of the recent failings of crypto and the industry’s largest firms.
Sam Bankman-Fried, for instance, is nearing the end of his trial for allegedly stealing billions of dollars from customers when spearheading FTX, while Binance is being targeted by authorities for supporting crypto accounts connected to Hamas

Data from previous crypto market cycles suggests that Bitcoin (BTC)’s dominance over altcoins will likely keep rising over the next several months, according to Glassnode.
In a newly published report, the blockchain and market intelligence outlined how the leading crypto asset’s dominance is shaping up against the second largest crypto, Ethereum (ETH), compared to previous years.
Ethereum Beating Gold, But Losing to BTC
When weighed against gold, Bitcoin has appreciated by 93% this year, with the former’s price per ounce staying relatively contained under $2000. ETH, by contrast, has only appreciated by 39%.
According to Glassnode, while both assets have experienced “similar magnitude downswings” throughout the year, upswing periods have seen more substantial gains for

The founders behind the once multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency, SafeMoon (SFM), have been charged with multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy by U.S. government, with accompanying charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
On Wednesday, founders Braden John Karony (aka “CPT_HODL_T_MUN”) and Thomas Smith (aka “papa”) were arrested in Provo, Utah and Bethlehem, New Hampshire, respectively. The third defendant, Kyle Nagy (aka “SafemoonDev”) remains at large.
The SafeMoon Fraud
Attorneys allege that the founders of the project deliberately lied to investors, misappropriating their purportedly “locked” SFM liquidity for their personal benefit.
“As alleged, the defendants deliberately misled investors and diverted millions of dollars to fuel their greedy

The crypto community celebrated the 15th anniversary of Bitcoin’s whitepaper on Tuesday, which marked the world’s first functional pitch for “peer-to-peer electronic cash.”
Among its celebrators was Gary Gensler – the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) so notorious for his strict enforcement actions against the crypto industry.
In a tweet on Tuesday, Gensler made mention of Satoshi Nakamoto – the anonymous author behind Bitcoin’s whitepaper who remains a mystery until this day.

“If Satoshi Nakamoto went as Satoshi Nakamoto for Halloween, would we be able to tell?” he asked. “Happy 15th anniversary to Satoshi’s famous white paper that started crypto.”

Despite his kind words for Satoshi, Gensler remained firm with the modern crypto firms. “Any crypto

Markets are turning away from bonds and into assets like Bitcoin (BTC) as “safe haven” stores of value as global war conflicts heat up, an Allianz Economist told CNBC in an interview last week.
The analyst for the $2 trillion financial services firm explained why the Treasury market has been so volatile this month, and why he believes a recession awaits the United States in early 2024.
Explaining The Treasury Selloff
According to Allianz chief economic advisor Mohamed El-Erian, the treasury market has already lost its economic, policy, and technical “anchors” – benchmark price figures toward which the market may form biases.
Furthermore, the economist expects the market supply of treasuries to continue rising as the government issues more debt, and as the Federal Reserve

While Binance remains the largest venue in the world for Bitcoin futures trading, another more regulated market is now following closely behind.
CME Bitcoin Futures now stands as the second-largest Bitcoin futures exchange in the world by open interest, signaling rising intrigue from institutions seeking Bitcoin exposure.
The Return of the CME to Bitcoin
According to data from Coinglass, there are now over 103,000 BTC in futures open interest (OI) live on the CME, worth $3.54 billion. That’s over 20% of the total Bitcoin futures OI tracked by the site, valued at $15.59 billion.
Binance, the single larger competitor to the CME, bears a similar 112.63K BTC ($3.87 billion) in futures OI, while Bybit hosts the third largest market with 74.31K BTC ($2.55 billion) in futures

Crypto exchange Kraken has confirmed that it plans to close all trading, deposits, and withdrawals for Tether USD (USDT), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), and other reserve-backed assets in Canada.
The suspension follows a similar stablecoin clampdown at other Canadian exchanges, amid regulatory guidance pertaining to the legal standing of such tokens.
No More Value-Pegged Tokens At Kraken
According to an email received by CryptoPotato from Kraken on Friday, the firm is now “required” to suspend deposits, withdrawals, and trading in Canada for Tether (USDT), Dai (DAI), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Wrapped Ether (WETH), and Wrapped Axelar (WAXL).
As of November 30 at 12:00 p.m. EST, deposits and trading for each coin will end. Withdrawals will end on December 4 at 11:00 a.m. EST, with

U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo confirmed in a speech on Friday that crypto plays a relevant, but still relatively minor role in global terrorist financing operations.
His comments bear a stark contrast to claims from a massive lineup of congresspeople earlier this month, asserting that crypto is responsible for over $130 million in Hamas terrorist funding.
The Reality of Terror Financing
During his remarks about terrorist groups, sanctions, and illicit finance, Adeyomo claimed that crypto is “not the vast majority of the ways that these groups are funded.”
“The thing that we know about terrorist groups and those who look to move money illicitly is that they’re going to use any new technology to try to do that,” he said.
“The thing that we’re going to do,

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried testified for the first time during his own fraud trial on Thursday, in what expert onlookers are calling a “hail mary” to rescue himself from conviction.
The examination pertained to scandalous private Signal messages he’d shared with his former colleagues, and whether or not he was ever authorized to delete such messages.
Skimming the Terms of Service
As reported by CNN, Bankman-Fried argued that using heavily encrypted messaging apps like Signal was necessary to shield the company against “constant attempts to hack FTX. Meanwhile, he claimed used an “auto-delete” function on the app since Signal was typically a place for chatter rather than discussing policies or business records.
When asked by prosecutors if he believed deleting seven

Are Hamas terrorists really raising tens of millions of dollars using crypto? Blockchain surveillance experts at Elliptic say the truth is a bit more nuanced.
The firm released a blog post on Wednesday dissecting prior claims from the Wall Street Journal about crypto being a major source of financing for the organization, which were later cited by U.S. Congress.
Crypto Terrorism: Myth VS Fact
In its report earlier this month, the WSJ cited Elliptic in claiming that $130 million had been collectively raised by both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) through blockchain-based rails.
However, Elliptic now says that there is “no evidence to support the assertion that Hamas has received significant volumes of crypto donations.”
“Over the past few years, Hamas has begun to

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes published another macro-economic breakdown on Tuesday, focusing on why Bitcoin’s price suddenly surged this week.
The analyst argued that now is the best time for crypto traders to step out of US Treasuries, and back into BTC.
The Speech That Pumped Bitcoin
According to Hayes, the crypto community has falsely attributed Bitcoin’s rally this week to excitement about a U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF potentially receiving approval. Such excitement, he said, already occurred last week in response to false rumors, and Bitcoin’s price sank back to $27,000 as the rumor was dispelled.
“Bitcoin — along with gold — is rallying against a backdrop of an aggressive selloff in long-end US Treasuries,” wrote Hayes. “This isn’t speculation as to an ETF being approved