Prospective Ethereum ETF issuers were given deadlines up until this morning for final 19b-4 forms.

But even if they are approved, trading of these products likely won’t start for weeks, as S-1s also need to be put into effect.

The S-1 registration statements for the ETFs need "a lot of work" and conversations with exchanges have not started.

Form 19b-4 is used by covered self-regulatory organizations (SROs) to record a rule change with the SEC.

Bitcoin has established itself as a serious competitor to gold. Bitcoin’s market capitalization is currently at 8.4%, quickly approaching 10% of gold as institutional interest soars. Bitcoin is currently valued at $1.4tr compared to gold’s $16tr market cap.

A key distinction between Bitcoin and gold is their supply dynamics:

⚫️Bitcoin’s supply is fixed, with 94% of its total 21m coins already mined, translating to a circulating supply of 19.7m.
⚫️In contrast, gold’s supply continues to grow steadily and is projected to reach 250,000 tonnes by 2030,.

The newly passed FIT21 clarifies the boundaries for regulatory roles of the CFTC and SEC among others.

⚫ CFTC — Regulates digital assets if the associated blockchain or digital ledger is both functional and decentralized.
⚫ SEC — Regulates assets and securities if the blockchain is functional but not decentralized.

U.S. House approves crypto FIT21 Bill with a very strong support from House Democrats.

The bill marks the industry's most significant legislative accomplishment in Congress, aiming to establish a clear regulatory framework for digital assets rather than relying on 90-year-old securities law written before the Internet existed.

President Biden opposed the bill with a policy statement, though he didn't say he'd veto the bill. SEC Chair Gary Gensler also strongly opposed the bill.

Bitcoin and Ethereum ETPs have been approved for listing on the London Stock Exchange.

14 years ago, Bitcoin's first transaction against a physical good took place.

$10,000 BTC against 2 pizzas 🍕

👉🏼On May 18, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz published a message on Bitcointalk that he is ready to give $10,000 of BTC against 2 pizzas.

This is $40 in 2010.

Today, this $10,000 of BTC would be worth $700 million, considering $70,000 as the current price of BTC.

📈 MicroStrategy stock has soared 500% in a year, belittling Bitcoin's 165% pump

MicroStrategy's stock typically mirrors the crypto market trends, primarily due to its huge exposure to Bitcoin.

As of May 21, the firm had 214,400 $BTC worth over $15.26 billion in its reserves, which makes 1% of the total Bitcoin supply of 21 million tokens.

Given all this, what would you invest in for the long run?

🐳 - BTC

🔥 - MSTR

The US House passed the Deploying American Blockchains Act of 2023, directing the Commerce Department to promote blockchain technology.

📣Morgan Stanley discloses US spot bitcoin ETF holdings worth over $270 million in filing

Multinational investment bank and financial services company Morgan Stanley disclosed U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund holdings worth over $270 million as of March 31 in a quarterly 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.

Morgan Stanley disclosed holding $269.9 million worth of Grayscale’s converted spot bitcoin ETF — making it the third-largest holder of GBTC shares behind Susquehanna’s $1.1 billion and Horizon Kinetics’s $946 million, according to Fintel data.

New York AG Letitia James announced a $2bn settlement with Genesis to repay defrauded investors.

Genesis will create a Victims' Fund for 29,000 New Yorkers and is barred from operating in the state.

In Q1 2024, crypto startups raised $2.4bn across 518 deals, a 40.3% increase in capital raised and a 44.7% increase in deal volume from the previous quarter.

Bankrupt crypto lender Genesis Global Capital won court approval of its plan to distribute billions of dollars in digital assets and cash to creditors, defeating a legal challenge brought by its corporate parent DCG.

Notcoin, a Telegram mini-app, reached 35m active users in a few months. Recently, Notcoin was minted on the TON blockchain and listed on major exchanges, allowing users to convert in-game currency into real money.

Notcoin quickly became a top-10 cryptocurrency by trading volume, with a market cap near $700m. This highlights the power of the Telegram and TON ecosystems for app developers.

Telegram’s Pavel Durov was gifted $6.8m worth of Notcoin from half a million Notcoin users and shared plans to hold until it reaches $680m to buy more servers for Telegram.

Crypto industry donors have contributed $94m to federal political committees since 2023, surpassing the previous election cycle's $83m.

Key donors include:

⚫️Jeffrey Yass: American billionaire businessman
⚫️Group Marc Andreessen: Venture Capitalist
⚫️Ben Horowitz: General partner of Andreessen Horowitz
⚫️Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss: Gemini Founders
⚫️Brian Armstrong: Coinbase CEO

Hong Kong users can now set up personal e-CNY wallets for cross-border payments to Mainland China using their mobile numbers, allowing top-ups via 17 retail banks.

JP Morgan analysts reportedly estimated BTC production costs at $45k currently and $42k medium-term, predicting limited price growth due to low inflows into US and HK spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Arkham has studied over 100 celebrities with more than 1m followers on X and highlighted their crypto holdings.

Top 6 by X followers with their crypto holdings in $:
1. Justin Bieber (singer): $450k
2. Donald Trump (politician): $6.9m
3. Neymar Jr. (footballer): $55k
4. Jimmy Fallon (comedian): $11k
5. Kevin Hart (actor): $40k
6. MrBeast (YouYuber): $478k

A whale mistakenly transferred and lost 1,155 BTC ($71m) due to a fatal copy-paste error.

1. Hacker closely monitored the whale’s activity on the blockchain and obtained an address similar to the one generated by the whale.

2. Hacker then transferred 0 ETH to the whale’s wallet address to create a transaction history containing the phishing address.

3. In the transaction history, the whale found an address with the same numbers before and after as their target address and mistakenly copied and pasted the phishing address.

Active users of South Korea’s registered exchanges increased by 390,000 to 6.45m (about 10% of the population) by the end of 2023.

Other key findings by the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KOFIU) include:

⚫99% of investors were identified as "individuals"
⚫About 60% of investors were in their 30s-40s
⚫Daily average trading volume increased by 24%, reaching 3.6tr won ($2.6bn)
⚫Total crypto holdings by exchanges surged by 53%, reaching 43.6tr won ($32.4bn)

El Salvador reportedly mined nearly 474 BTC using geothermal energy since 2021, increasing its total holdings to 5,750 BTC, valued at $354m.

President Bukele's administration uses 1.5 MW of power from the Tecapa volcano for mining operations.