Crypto
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Solana soars on CME futures announcement

Derivative marketplace CME Group, which already offers futures on bitcoin and ethereum, said that it will add Solana to its roster, spiking the cryptocurrency up 4% immediately after the announcement at 9 a.m. ET to $145.

Giovanni Vicioso, global head of cryptocurrency products at CME Group, said in the press release that the move is in response “to increasing client demand for a broader set of regulated products to manage cryptocurrency price risk.”

“The launch of SOL futures is a significant milestone in the ongoing maturation of the cryptocurrency market,” Teddy Fusaro, president of Bitwise Asset Management Inc., said in the press release.

Solana, which is also the blockchain underpinning many meme coins like $TRUMP and dogwifhat, also is likely benefiting from the SEC’s new guidance released yesterday that meme coins are not securities as they do not pass the Howey test. The long-awaited guidance clarifies the regulatory environment for traders, who will “not need to register their transactions” in meme coins per the guidance, which likens the coins to collectibles.

A smaller win for solana came from popular wallet MetaMask, which announced it will add support for solana in May, followed by bitcoin in the third quarter.

The one-two-three punch is a nice win for solana, which has seen huge growth in the past year largely due to the explosion of meme coins. Next, it hopes to join the list of crypto ETFs.

Giovanni Vicioso, global head of cryptocurrency products at CME Group, said in the press release that the move is in response “to increasing client demand for a broader set of regulated products to manage cryptocurrency price risk.”

“The launch of SOL futures is a significant milestone in the ongoing maturation of the cryptocurrency market,” Teddy Fusaro, president of Bitwise Asset Management Inc., said in the press release.

Solana, which is also the blockchain underpinning many meme coins like $TRUMP and dogwifhat, also is likely benefiting from the SEC’s new guidance released yesterday that meme coins are not securities as they do not pass the Howey test. The long-awaited guidance clarifies the regulatory environment for traders, who will “not need to register their transactions” in meme coins per the guidance, which likens the coins to collectibles.

A smaller win for solana came from popular wallet MetaMask, which announced it will add support for solana in May, followed by bitcoin in the third quarter.

The one-two-three punch is a nice win for solana, which has seen huge growth in the past year largely due to the explosion of meme coins. Next, it hopes to join the list of crypto ETFs.

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Red Sunburst

Solana ETFs listings delayed as JPMorgan predicts the funds to net $1.5 billion in first year

JPMorgan analysts noted that “solana is not perceived by investors the same way as ethereum as the main DeFi/smart contract cryptocurrency.”

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BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF is on the cusp of $100 billion in assets, a milestone it will have achieved in less than two years

While VOO might be the largest ETF in the world, IBIT — BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF — is the fastest-growing. And the bitcoin-centered product is on the cusp of a major milestone, reporting that it now holds 802,257 BTC, putting it within a whisker of hitting $100 billion in assets (worth roughly $99 billion in good old-fashioned USD at the time of writing).

Considering that BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust launched only 636 days ago, that’s a remarkable speedrun, as individual and institutional investors have embraced cryptocurrency via the exchange-traded fund. For context, VOO took over 2,900 days to hit the same milestone (about eight years).

VOO vs. IBIT spead to $100 billion assets under management
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As noted in a great piece by Robin Wigglesworth in the Financial Times, IBIT is now a major money-spinner for one of the biggest stalwarts of TradFi. As the largest exchange-traded product in the crypto space, and with a not insignificant expense ratio of 0.25%, the ETF is pulling in somewhere in the region of $250 million of revenue for its asset manager parent company. As Wigglesworth puts it:

“Anyway, it’s heartwarming to see that one of the companies profiting the most from an anarchical, decentralised invention supposedly designed to reorder the global financial system is... BlackRock.”

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Bitcoin ETFs take in more than $2 billion in two days

Bitcoin is down 2.7% from its recent record which saw it passing $126,000, but bitcoin ETFs are still hot.

The ETFs have already amassed more than $2 billion this week, on track to surpass last week’s $3.2 billion in inflows. In total, bitcoin ETFs have just under $165 billion in assets under management, representing 6.78% of the total market cap, SoSoValue data shows.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust by far took the lion’s share, with $1.8 billion of inflows. The fund is also close to $100 billion in assets, despite not even being 2 years old.

Bitwise CEO Matt Hougan said in a note, “The stars are aligned for a very strong Q4 for flows — more than enough to push us to a new record,” in part thanks to the “debasement trade.” 

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