● The US SEC began reviewing Bitcoin spot ETF applications this week, and the review period may be up to 240 days
According to CoinDesk, the U.S. SEC began reviewing this week whether to approve or reject the listing applications of six Bitcoin spot ETFs, including BlackRock’s.
Although the SEC released a document seeking public consultation last week, the review will not be officially launched until it is published in the Federal Register. The review period was initially set at 45 days, but can be extended to 240 days. While there is no guarantee that the SEC will approve any application, the crypto community speculates that BlackRock's application is more likely to be approved.
Bitwise's Bitcoin ETP Trust application was published in the Federal Register on Tuesday. BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust, Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust, WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust, VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF and Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF will be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday. ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF was published in the Federal Register on May 15, and the SEC extended the review deadline in June. Valkyrie's Bitcoin spot ETF has not yet been published in the Federal Register, but its application was officially recognized by the SEC on Monday, a Valkyrie spokesperson said.
● 8 Bitcoin spot ETF applications have completed registration
Watcher.Guru posted on Twitter that eight Bitcoin spot ETF applications from BlackRock, Fidelity and others have completed registration.
As previously reported, the U.S. SEC began reviewing this week whether to approve or reject the listing applications of six Bitcoin spot ETFs, including BlackRock. The review period was initially set at 45 days, but can be extended to 240 days.
● Nasdaq suspends launch of its digital asset custody business due to regulatory risks
According to CoinDesk, Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman said in a conference call on Wednesday that Nasdaq has suspended the launch of its digital asset custody business due to regulatory risks.
● The U.S. Senate is preparing to pass a new crypto regulatory bill that imposes anti-money laundering requirements on DeFi protocols
According to CoinDesk, the U.S. Senate is preparing to pass a new crypto regulatory bill that will impose anti-money laundering requirements on DeFi protocols. The proposal, called the Crypto-Asset National Security Enhancement Act of 2023, requires DeFi protocols to impose bank-like regulatory controls on their users, aiming to combat crypto crimes and close money laundering channels. The bill requires that anyone who invests more than $25 million to develop a DeFi protocol without a real controller be held accountable.
● Societe Generale receives cryptocurrency license from French regulator
According to Foresight News, SG Forge, the cryptocurrency department of Societe Generale, has been granted a cryptocurrency license by the French financial regulator and can provide services such as digital asset buying, selling, trading and custody.
● CMC H1 report: VR/AR, AI & big data lead the market narrative, blue chip DeFi projects and infrastructure return strongly
According to the 2023 H1 Crypto Market Report released by CoinMarketCap, as of Q2, the global cryptocurrency market value reached 1.17 trillion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 48%. The total market value of Q1 and Q2 is almost the same, making Q2 look underperforming.
Q2 also lacked a strong market narrative compared to Q1. In Q1, the market experienced more significant developments, such as the doubling of Bitcoin price, the rise of L2s such as Arbitrium and ZK, and a more active NFT market driven in part by product upgrades and Blur's token issuance. Q2 failed to achieve any similar breakthrough progress, and instead witnessed different trends such as the "memecoin season" and the rise of BRC20 tokens, which, while noteworthy, did not match the market optimism of Q1.
The CMC Crypto Fear and Greed Index started the year around 30 (fear), but H1 is around 52 (neutral), indicating a significant improvement in market sentiment.
The total spot trading volume of the top 20 cryptocurrency exchanges peaked in March, and fell by about 36% month-on-month in Q2 to $1.67 trillion compared to Q1 (US$2.6 trillion), and was close to dormant by the end of June, at about $523 billion per month.
In a challenging market, certain tracks are still seeing significant growth in market capitalization so far this year. VR/AR (704%) and AI & Big Data (323%) have been leading the market narrative, while blue-chip DeFi projects and infrastructure are making a strong comeback. These areas include lending (149%), derivatives (75%), storage (86%), and interoperability (58%).
Notably, the Meme Coin track has added more than 260 coins so far this year, marking it as the most active new track. Artificial Intelligence and Big Data ranked second, adding 61 coins, while DeFi ranked third, with 47 new coins added so far this year.
● XRP futures open interest exceeds $1.1 billion, setting a new high for the year
According to CoinDesk, Coinglass data showed that the open interest in XRP futures exceeded US$1.1 billion in the past 24 hours, exceeding the US$1 billion reached last week, setting a new high for the year.
XRP futures open interest has grown 21% since Tuesday, with the majority of these positions — worth $443 million — located on Binance.
● Polygon announces new governance framework plan: including three governance pillars and introducing the "Ecosystem Committee"
According to The Block, the Polygon team has unveiled plans to create a new governance framework aimed at further decentralizing the ecosystem. This development is a response to the new Polygon 2.0 roadmap.
The team said Polygon's new governance model will form "three pillars of governance," focusing on governance of its core protocol, smart contracts, and community treasury management. In a blog post, Polygon noted that the team drew inspiration from Ethereum's governance model and intends to absorb Ethereum's spirit and community building techniques. Other key features include the expansion of the Polygon Improvement Proposal (PIP) framework, the introduction of an "ecosystem council" for system smart contract upgrades, and a two-stage community treasury governance to provide funding for promising ecosystem projects.
● Cathie Wood: BTC price is expected to reach $1.5 million by 2030
According to CryptoPotato, ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood said that she and her funds are now more confident about BTC's "bull market" and expect the BTC price to reach US$1.5 million by 2030.
Cathie Wood said that as regional banks failed and stocks plummeted across the board, the price of Bitcoin rose from $19,000 to $30,000. The rally marked a "flight to safe assets" by investors, which is what everyone ultimately wants. Bitcoin protects against both direct and indirect confiscation of wealth. Direct confiscation refers to the theft of personal property by force, while indirect confiscation refers to inflation, especially inflating the money supply to astronomical figures through the issuance of additional coins. The supply of Bitcoin is programmatically capped at 21 million, so this form of inflation is impossible. However, even in an environment of fiat deflation, Bitcoin can hedge against counterparty risk.
Cathie Wood said, “Bitcoin will not be like 2008 or 2009. Everything is decentralized and transparent.”
● Meta and Microsoft jointly release open source large-scale language model Llama 2
According to Foresight News, Meta and Microsoft have jointly launched the open source large-scale language model Llama 2, which will run on Microsoft's Windows and cloud computing platform Azure. Llama 2 is free for research and commercial use, and is also optimized for running on Windows. Meta claims that Llama 2 accepts 40% more training from public online data sources than Llama 1 and handles twice as much context as Llama 1.