First Mover Americas: Crypto in the Red Ahead of Friday's U.S. Inflation Data

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Bitcoin (BTC) held its own below $68,000 during the European morning while several altcoins lost as much as 5%. BTC is priced just under $67,800 at the time of writing, practically unchanged over 24 hours. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) lost nearly 2%, with meme coins SHIB and DOGE leading the declines, down 5.2% and 3.7% respectively. Traders are looking toward Friday's U.S. PCE announcement, which Japanese crypto exchange bitBank warned could spell further losses. "If the inflation data comes in hotter than expected, bitcoin could give up about a half of its gain in the past two weeks and decline to around $65,000," bitBank said in an email to CoinDesk.

The listing of a spot ether ETF by the end of June is "a legit possibility," Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas said after BlackRock filed an amended S-1 form, revealing a "seed capital investor" had purchased the initial shares for the proposed product. "On May 21, 2024, the Seed Capital Investor, an affiliate of the Sponsor, subject to conditions, purchased the Seed Creation Baskets, comprising 400,000 Shares at a per-Share price equal to $25.00," the S-1 form showed. "The net asset value of the Trust was $10,000,000." Subject to regulatory approval, assets held in the ETF can be redeemed for cash or even ether. The iShares Ethereum Trust ether ETF will list and trade under "ETHA."

The New York Stock Exchange would consider offering crypto trading if the regulatory status was clearer, the company's president said at Consensus 2024 in Austin, Texas. Lynn Martin referred to cryptocurrency trading as "an opportunity to look at," in a panel discussion on Wednesday. "The fact that you've seen $58 billion or so come to the ETFs has been a strong sign that the market is looking for regulation in traditional structures," Martin said. "So, hopefully, the [SEC] saw the inflows and said, 'Hey, this makes a lot of sense,' considering bitcoin ETFs have been a tremendous success." NYSE's U.S.-based rival, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is planning to launch spot crypto trading to clients, the Financial Times reported earlier this month.

Chart of the Day

• The chart shows the yield on the U.S. two-year note is again knocking on the 5% level.
• The opportunity to lock in a 5% yield and hedge against a potential U.S. economic slowdown might see investors rotate money out of risk assets and into bonds.
• Source: TradingView

- Omkar Godbole

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