The last saw a lot of positive movement in the crypto markets. The week after the SEC filed charges against Binance and fueled one of the most significant panics in the crypto space this year, BlackRock Inc. filed for a Bitcoin ETF (exchange-traded fund).
This news quickly changed the market sentiment and now has many crypto investors feeling hopeful and bullish a little less than a year before the next expected Bitcoin halving. Let's take a look at what else happened this week.
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Application Filed
The biggest story of the week without a doubt happened when Blackrock filed for a Bitcoin ETF. For the last couple of years, crypto hopefuls have been waiting patiently for a move like this to push institutional adoption of crypto forward. Crypto bulls are anticipating a major push closer to the ever-elusive 'mass adoption' once an institutional vehicle for crypto investment becomes more readily available to the traditional finance retail investor ("normie"). Given the historic meteoric performance of Bitcoin and other altcoins, the crypto space believes that bringing retail investment money into the space will create an opportunity for even more significant growth.
While a Bitcoin ETF with a major institution is not a magic bullet to make stonks go up only, it is a big move bigger picture to bring more people into crypto and ultimately makes crypto investing even more accessible and potentially at lower risk to newcomers.
What is the likelihood that the BlackRock BTC ETF gets approved? Probably higher than one might think. While there have been a couple of applications for Bitcoin ETFs in the past that ultimately failed, BlackRock Inc. has submitted 576 applications for ETFs in the past and had 575 of them approved. It's clear they don't go at anything half-cocked, and they are not short on experience in dealing with these types of financial products. It will be a while before we ultimately see the result of the BlackRock ETF application, but for now, we're hopeful and bullish.
It's Been a Great Week to Hold Crypto
At the time of writing, $BTC is trading at $30,437 and is up over 15% on the week. While Bitcoin has been the darling of up-only this week, many other altcoins are up substantially on the 7-day with Cardano $ADA up over 11% on the week to $.292, and Solana $SOL trading a $16.88 up over 9% on the week.
This week's run has been a spark of hope for many crypto investors. Many hopefuls expect some of the Bitcoin hype to run off on smaller-cap altcoins and spark an alt-season (which happens frequently), however, we can't suggest whether or not Bitcoin is due for the type of correction which usually precedes an altcoin run, but profits tend to move, and unless smart money is stockpiling BTC ahead of the ETF and holding mid-to-longer-term, there's good possibility money will start to flow from Bitcoin into Ethereum $ETH, which saw solid gains on the week at over 9% and is currently trading around $1,897 and saw a brief peak over $1,900 earlier this week, and others.
After such a significant run-up in a short time, it's possible markets might adjust as some investors take profits or exit held positions at now less of a loss. In our opinion, outside of a normal dollar-cost-averaging strategy or a plan to hold very long term, now is a good time to do nothing. It's too easy to get caught in a quick runup and roundtrip after the hype dies down. We still have a long way to go before the halving.
NFTs Having a Rough Go Lately
NFTs were the beloved darling of Crypto in 2021 and 2022, many of which saw unimaginable gains which made a few savvy early buyers/investors a lot of money. With a lot of the hype dead, projects that rugged or fizzled away after failing to deliver on projects or unable to achieve roadmap milestones as a result of poor management or lack of continuous capital inflow, NFTs are in a bit of a rough patch right now with very few good projects coming to market and even the best of projects down considerably from their all-time highs.
In 2020, a lot of early Ethereum adopters had the opportunity to stack $ETH and hold while ecosystems on the Ethereum blockchain started to develop. The institution of the ERC721 token standard along with some slick web integrations created a situation where long-term holders and users had the opportunity to finally do something with cryptocurrency besides watch the chart.
Imagine an early investor probably paid between 90 and 200 dollars for 1 $ETH, minted an early and popular NFT like Bored Ape Yacht Club, or Crypto Punks (or maybe minted multiple), and watched the demand for those digital assets skyrocket. Mint was .08 $ETH maybe, got as high as 28 $ETH (the example above), while the price of 1 $ETH rocketed up as high as $4500. The early investor gets in at the USD equivalent of $12.00, then with the price of the NFT and $ETH increasing in tandem, sells for the USD equivalent of $126,000 in a matter of months.
This notion led a lot of people to start funneling money into digital assets with little knowledge of the underlying value or mechanisms. A lot of people made a lot of money, and some made it at the expense of others. The space saw countless scams, rug-pulls, and failed projects come following the promise of easy money, and of course, there was also a bubble.
The notable and higher-value projects are still very active, developing their products, and continuing to nurture and grow their communities and their brands. Even though this is the case, the demand for NFTs is down considerably since its peak at the blow-off top of the only NFT bull-run the crypto space has ever seen, and it seems like many people have left the space which is a shame since the technology is really cool.
It might take some time for them to come back around price-wise, but NFT tech is here to stay, and we're still looking forward to seeing how a few projects continue to develop. Now is probably a great time to get an entry on one of these high-value projects if you've been eyeing them for a while.
We'll See What Happens Next Week
There's been a lot going on in crypto the last couple of weeks, and it's hard to tell where the space will take us next. Whatever the case may be, we're here for it. We hope this crypto news recap has helped to catch you up on the latest in crypto news. We'll be back with more content soon. Don't forget to check out some more recent news articles below, and give us a follow on Twitter @cryptogatemedia.