Bitcoin (BTC) was out of favour for the third day in a row on Thursday as the world’s largest cryptocurrency dipped 1.6% against the US dollar.
It follows similar declines in the previous two trading sessions that have taken a bite out of bitcoin’s supersized Monday rally.
At the time of writing, bitcoin was swapping for $68,070, roughly 3% higher week on week.
Ethereum is gobbling up all of the attention in the cryptocurrency markets as the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) prepares to give its verdict on ether-backed exchange-traded funds.
The SEC is due to either approve or deny VanEck’s application today, with Bloomberg’s ETF seer Eric Balcunas expecting a result around 4pm EDT.
As the decisiion approaches, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has called on the SEC to “apply the same principles set forth in the approval of the spot bitcoin ETPs as it evaluates the pending ether ETP applications”.
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers (incl Majority Whip Tom Emmer and NJ Democrat Josh Gottheimer) have sent Gary Gensler a letter urging the SEC to approve spot Ether ETFs (and 'other' digital assets) bc it offers investors crypto access in regulated transparent safe format pic.twitter.com/YLSJh6n0lF— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) May 23, 2024
The approval of bitcoin ETFs in January preempted an all-time high in bitcoin’s spot price; markets are hoping for something similar to happen to ether spot prices.
Markets have started to price in approval, with the ETH/USD pair surging 28% week on week to top $3,800 at the time of writing.
Denial or delay of VanEck’s application will likely cause an immediate repricing.
With markets on tenterhooks, global cryptocurrency market capitalisation currently stands at $2.55 trillion, with bitcoin dominance at 52.8%.