● The US SEC postpones the decision time of ARK 21Shares and VanEck Ethereum spot ETF to the end of December
In another notice filed on September 27, the U.S. SEC said it would designate a longer period of time to decide whether to approve a proposed rule change that would allow VanEck and ARK 21Shares’ Ethereum spot ETFs to be listed on the Cboe BZX Exchange, Cointelegraph reported.
The SEC said it received no public comments on the two filings and would extend the resolution deadlines to Dec. 25 and 26, respectively. “The Commission believes it is necessary to designate a longer period within which to act on the proposed rule changes to allow adequate time to consider the changes and the issues therein,” the SEC explained.
● Bloomberg analyst: US SEC hopes to speed up the launch of Ethereum futures ETF
Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, wrote, “The SEC wants to speed up the launch of the Ethereum futures ETF (because they want to free it from their work after the government shutdown), so they require applicants to update their documents by Friday afternoon (this is not a small task to squeeze into 48 hours, especially for independent issuers) so that they can go to work on Monday and trade on Tuesday.”
● Bloomberg analyst: Ethereum futures ETF is expected to be launched in early October
According to Planet Daily, Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, said that although spot ETFs are still in an uncertain state, Ethereum futures ETFs are very likely (90% probability) to be launched from early October. Balchunas expects Valkyrie to be launched first (although it is a hybrid ETF of BTC+ETH), and then more than a dozen direct Ethereum futures ETFs will be listed one after another.
Earlier news, Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart said that Valkyrie changed the effective date of its leveraged Bitcoin futures ETF filing to October 20. The filing was originally submitted on May 15, 2023, and will actively manage 100-200% long BTC exposure.
● Gary Gensler: Bitcoin is not a security and does not meet the Howey test
According to the Daily Planet, Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett posted on the X platform that Patrick McHenry, chairman of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, asked at a hearing: "Why is Bitcoin not considered a security?" SEC Chairman Gary Gensler tried to evade the question and replied: "It does not meet the legal standard for being a security, namely the Howey Test." Gensler finally said: "It is not a security."
● Data: About 70% of Bitcoin has not moved in the past 365 days
Data released by Unchained shows that about 70% of Bitcoin has not moved in the past 365 days. Historically, Bitcoin bear markets end when investor enthusiasm for buying and selling Bitcoin disappears, leaving only strong holders and prices begin to slowly rise from recent lows. Bitcoin is up 73% from its 2022 low.
● 0xscope: More than 60% of Arbitrum Odyssey’s NFT distribution in June 2022 went to a large number of bots
According to the Daily Planet report, the 0xScope team stated that a large number of bots participated in the first Arbitrum Odyssey event launched in June 2022. On June 28 (the day before the event was suspended), Arbitrum added 65,361 new addresses per day; by the time Arbitrum suspended Odyssey, the platform had distributed 438,529 NFTs, of which 282,123 NFTs went to various bots, accounting for about 64.3% of the total supply.
According to statistics, a total of 282,123 bots participated in the event, all of which were handled by 88,241 bot groups; in the end, each bot group received an average of 3.2 NFTs, which is undoubtedly worrying for an event that should distribute task-related NFTs to participants at a 1:1 ratio. Among them, the address starting with 0xc363 (named Raydalio on OpenSea) is the biggest beneficiary of the Arbitrum Odyssey event, which controls 48,357 bot addresses, of which 46,839 participated in the event. Assuming that each of these addresses received 1 NFT, this means that an entity with a large number of bots may have ended up receiving 10.7% of all NFTs distributed by Arbitrum for the event.
● Beosin releases 2023 Q3 Global Web3 Security Report
According to the Daily Planet report, Beosin released the 2023 Q3 Global Web3 Security Report. The total losses in the Web3 field in Q3 due to hacker attacks, phishing scams and Rug Pull incidents reached US$889.26 million, exceeding the total losses in the first half of 2023. A total of 43 major security incidents occurred in the quarter, causing a loss of US$540.16 million, of which 29 occurred in the DeFi field, accounting for about 67.4%, causing a total loss of US$98.23 million. According to the type of attack: 9 private key leaks caused a loss of US$223 million; Mixin Network security incidents caused a loss of US$200 million; 22 contract vulnerabilities caused a loss of approximately US$93.27 million.
● Federal Reserve releases report on tokenization
According to Foresight News, the Federal Reserve released a report titled "Tokenization: Overview and Financial Stability Implications", which explains the background, potential benefits and financial stability risks of tokenization. The report points out that tokenization establishes interconnections between the digital asset ecosystem and the traditional financial system, which can reduce the barriers for investors to enter the market.
The report states that the scale of tokenization is currently small, but as the number and scale grow, it may disguise riskier or less liquid reference assets as safe and easy to trade reference assets, bringing vulnerability to the crypto asset market and financial stability loopholes to the traditional financial system.
