Global Courant
Crypto prices surged to the end of the week on Friday, a day after the world’s largest asset manager plunged into the race to launch the first spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund in the US
Bitcoin ended the day higher by 3.75% at $26,355.04, according to CoinMetrics, while ether advanced 3% to $1,718.32.
Even altcoins rose, with tokens linked to it Solana And Cardano with gains of 4.5% and 2% respectively. Binance coin was 2.75% higher, litecoin gained 3% and the Uniswap token advanced 4%.
Bitcoin ended the week slightly negative, for the second week in a row, with 0.21%. Ether also posted a second straight weekly decline. It fell by 10.84%. Coin Metrics measures a week in crypto, which trades 24 hours a day, from the stock market close at 4pm ET on Friday.
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Bitcoin (BTC) this week
Investors weighed in on the latest development in the crypto industry’s battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for regulatory recognition and guidance. After the bell Thursday, BlackRock — the largest asset manager in the world — filed for a spot bitcoin ETF, with Coinbase as its crypto custodian.
“One of the big purposes that bitcoin serves as an asset class is really diversification. It just has a different risk profile than traditional financial markets,” said Gustavo Schwenkler, an associate professor in the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. “If this were approved, I could expect many more institutional investors to add bitcoin to their investment in their portfolios… it would institutionalize the market in a way that is not possible now.”
If it allowed the iShares Bitcoin Trust to move forward, it would become the first approved ETF in the US to track bitcoin’s price against the futures contracts linked to the cryptocurrency. It’s been about 10 years since the first application for a potential spot bitcoin ETF. Since then, every filing that has gone through the SEC has been denied.
The filing comes about a week after the SEC charged its crypto custody partner, Coinbase, with violating securities laws, leading many to question the timing of BlackRock’s filing.
“That apparent commitment to Coinbase is almost as important in the short term as their commitment to bitcoin is in the long run,” said Mark Connors, chief research officer at 3iQ. “It’s a big problem.”
— CNBC’s Gina Francolla contributed reporting.
