Happy Friday! Binance Bytes is an initiative by the Research team to provide a quick round-up of the week.
Highlights 🧵:
1/ The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officially approves 8 spot Ethereum ETFs from BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, Bitwise, VanEck, Ark, Invesco Galaxy and Franklin Templeton. This decision came after an unexpected U-turn when the SEC began engaging with issuers earlier this week, requesting amended and resubmitted 19-4b filings. The next step is for the S-1 registration statements to be approved and effective, after which trading of the ETFs may start.
2/ Fantom Foundation introduced Sonic Foundation and Sonic Labs for their upcoming new Layer-1, Sonic Chain. The Sonic Foundation will oversee Sonic’s governance, manage the network treasury, orchestrate partnerships, and develop the DApp ecosystem. Sonic Chain is a parallelized EVM chain designed to be a high-performance L1 with sub-second finality. Fantom Foundation closed a strategic funding round of $10 million — led by Hashed — to support the Sonic Foundation. This round included participation from UOB Ventures, Signum Capital, Aave Foundation, and several angel investors including Stani Kulechov, Robert Leshner, and Sam Kazemian.
3/ The U.S. House passed the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), establishing a new regulatory framework for digital assets and enhancing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) oversight. FIT21 sets up definitions for crypto assets, and divides responsibility between the CFTC and SEC. The House recorded a 279-136 vote on Wednesday, with 71 Democrats and 208 Republicans voting in favor, versus 3 Republicans and 133 Democrats who voted against.
Check out our latest publications from this week 🔎: