Key Takeaways
- Bitcoin is trading around $64,000 in the U.S. afternoon Wednesday after breaking above $65,000 earlier in the day.
- An investment note from digital asset manager Bitwise says ether is destined to reach all-time highs after spot ether ETF listings expected to start soon.
- The U.S. spot bitcoin ETF market experienced its largest day of inflows since June 5 on Tuesday at $422.5 million.
- Grayscale has introduced a fund that includes a basket of crypto tokens focused on decentralized AI.
Bitcoin (BTC) has continued its positive price movement this week, briefly rising above $65,000 on Wednesday. The cryptocurrency asset is now up roughly 12% since Friday amid improved odds for crypto-friendly candidate Donald Trump to be re-elected president and the upcoming approval of spot ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Spot Ether ETFs Launch Seen Boosting Ether Price
A new investment note from digital asset manager Bitwise’s chief investment officer, Matt Hougan, said the listing of spot ether ETFs will send the underlying cryptocurrency of Ethereum to all-time highs above $5,000.
According to Hougan, this price push higher will be due partially to the roughly 28% of total ether supply that is unavailable to these future ETFs due to being staked on the Ethereum network. This means the assets are committed to a contract for a set period of time and can’t be withdrawn and sold. The ether held by the upcoming ETFs won’t be staked, at least for now.
Hougan adds that the ether price could be choppy at first; however, he sees all-time highs coming for ETH by year-end. Hougan previously stated his belief that spot ether ETFs will experience $15 billion in inflows over the next year and a half.
Spot Bitcoin ETF Inflows Continue Strength
On the bitcoin side, inflows into U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs haven’t slowed—Tuesday’s were greater than any single day over the past two months. According to Farside Investors, $422.5 million moved into these new financial products Tuesday, which is the largest single-day amount since June 5. When combined with Monday’s numbers, $723.4 million has already flowed into spot bitcoin ETFs this week.
Digital asset manager Grayscale, which operates the second-largest spot bitcoin ETF (GBTC), on Wednesday announced the launch of its newest private placement investment product: the Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund, which holds crypto tokens operating in the realm of decentralized artificial intelligence (AI).
The fund will be updated and rebalanced on a quarterly basis, and it currently includes Bittensor (TAO), Filecoin (FIL), Livepeer (LPT), Near (NEAR), and Render (RNDR) AI crypto protocols.