ProShares created a notice with the SEC participating in the ETF issuance. According to the SEC’s schedule, the first official opinion of said ETF would have appeared this Tuesday.

This Tuesday, October 19, the trading of shares of the first bitcoin ETF on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), issued by the firm ProShares, took its course.

ProShares introduced a notification to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, revealing that the commercialization of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF will begin next Tuesday.

This information joins the prospectus introduced by that firm last Friday 15th, which constituted an announcement of the approval of said ETF.

On the other hand, ProShares CEO Michael Sapir, while speaking to the New York Times, confirmed the release of the ETF on Tuesday. The executive said that many investors have been attracted to bitcoin but were hesitant to play a more relevant role in cryptocurrency exchanges.

According to Sapirthese,  various investors demanded more convenient access to bitcoin in an envelope that has integrity in the marketplace.

Although there is no official statement from the SEC regarding the approval of the ProShares Bitcoin ETF, the latest ProShares documents remain without response by the regulator, so the situation suggests that the green light to the ETF is feasible.

Preparing the ETF Issuance

On the other hand, preparations in the NYSE for the ETF issuance are already underway, as can be seen from the communication added to the SEC by the exchange itself. The NYSE advised through this document that the regulator has already approved the shares of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF.

This year, 19 bitcoin ETF applications got filed with the SEC. Seven of these applications referred to ETFs based on bitcoin futures, while the remaining twelve are “physical” or spot bitcoin ETFs, as explained in this Arcane Research study.

The first expected moves of the SEC correspond to bitcoin ETFs based on futures. This last modality is preferred by the SEC, according to a series of statements that came from its president, Gary Gensler.

The president of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, waved his hand in favor of ETFs with roots in bitcoin futures.

These statements appeared at the North American Conference on The Future of Management of Assets. Gensler consolidated his statement regarding the adequacy of mutual funds, and bitcoin ETFs oriented towards investing in more futures contracts.

New Business Strategies, New Structures, and New Practices

The SEC released Gensler’s address at the conference on Wednesday, highlighting that the asset management industry is currently evolving. The SEC is now seeking new business strategies, structures, and even new practices.

Currently, the regulator expects more than 14,000 registered investment advisers, with more than 48 million clients and nearly $ 112 trillion in assets under management. The regulation, according to Gensler, has roots in two primordial policies enacted in 1940.

After including private funds, and new regulations on financial disclosure by fund managers, Gensler aimed at investment vehicles that provide exposure to crypto-assets.

He mentioned that several mutual funds got launched this year. These mutual funds got invested in bitcoin futures and traded by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).

By: Jenson Nuñez

Doggy cryptocurrencies went through a bad day. Many tokens have crumbled down in price after the Buterin sell-off. Among them, Dogey-Inu crashed 100%.

Ethereum co-founder and leading creator Vitalik Buterin has been cleaning up his wallet and has sold a lot of doggy meme tokens that got sent to him without his consent, generating profits of more than $ 1 million.

This Tuesday, Buterin went through decentralized exchanges to get rid of several canine-themed cryptocurrencies that people usually send to his wallet.

According to various media, the developer sold hundreds of billions of tokens of Shih Tzu (SHIH), Dogey-Inu (DINU), Kishu Inu (KISHU), Baby Shiba (BHIBA), Aidi Inu (AIDI), Small Doge (SDOG), Jejudoge (JEJUDOGE), among others.

Etherscan data confirms that many of these sales happened through platforms like Uniswap and Gnosis, from where Buterin exchanged the funds of said tokens for wrapped Ethereum (WETH).

Most of those cryptocurrencies crumbled down after the massive sell-offs, some even with double-digit percentage losses. For example, the Shih Tzu token fell 55% in the last 24 hours, while the price of Baby Shiba crashed 76% in the same period. This data appeared in a report by CoinGecko.

However, of all those mentioned, the one that seems to register the worst fall is Doggy-Inu, which collapsed 100%, losing its entire value.

Almost $ 2 Million in Puppy Tokens

According to the medium CryptoBriefing, the massive sale of puppy coins would have a value of more than 4 million US dollars. Due to the lack of liquidity for those tokens, the total amount the Ethereum co-founder received after the sale went near $ 1.8 million.

The sudden growth experienced by Dogecoin (DOGE), the top doggie coin by market capitalization this year, sparked the explosion of many similar projects that leveraged the canine Shiba Inu image.

Many of these projects, which got launched on the Ethereum network, sent large amounts of tokens to Buterin’s wallet in the hopes of burning them or at least taking them out of circulation.

Eliminating tokens can lead to an eventual boom in the price since the total supply gets reduced, reducing the supply.

However, this burning tactic doesn’t seem to be working very well, especially with Buterin being critical of many of these projects.

Something similar has happened before. In May of this year, the developer got rid of large amounts of other meme coins worth more than $ 65 million, including Dogecoin’s “killer” token, Shiba Inu (SHIB).

The Shiba Inu project team had sent 50% of the coin’s total supply to a Buterin address to take half of the tokens out of circulation, a strategy to reduce supply and encourage a peal in the price of SHIB. But Buterin does not like that projects used his address for such purposes without first consulting him.

Buterin Supports Legitimate Projects

The developer went through decentralized exchanges to say good bye to the tokens. He also added Akita Inu and Dogelon Mars. However, in the absence of liquidity, Buterin opted to spend much of the fortune on various charitable projects, including a donation of around $ 1 billion in Shiba Inu tokens to the Covid Relief Fund of India.

This Tuesday, Buterin has also chosen to use part of the income from the latest token sale to help good causes. Etherscan’s transaction data shows that it spent nearly $ 200,000 buying and burning 8% of Proof of Humanity’s supply of UBI tokens.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Large entities would benefit the most from updating their systems for EIP-1559. Developments in the purses will help the EIP-1559 to unfold its full potential.

Around 40% of the transfers that take effect on the Ethereum blockchain are paying higher than required fees. This situation happens due to a lack of updates by some wallets and exchanges to be compatible with the EIP-1559.

This EIP went active last August 5, when the London hard fork happened. Various reports highlighted that, with this update, the method to pay the fees changes: One part gets burned, and another part goes to the miners as a tip.

Hopefully, if everything goes according to plan, the fees paid in Ethereum will get reduced thanks to EIP-1559. 60% of network users are already enjoying the benefit. In any case, some continue to pay “gas” following the old-based structure, which is by using outdated platforms.

The Dune Analytics browser website shows in real-time the percentage of transactions that happen in each block and the ones going under the protocol of the improvement proposal.

EIP-1559 Improves User Experience on Ethereum but Needs More Adoption

Popular cryptocurrency platforms such as Binance, Kraken, Gate.io, Bitstamp, Gemini, Blockfi, Cripto.com, and Bittrex had not updated their systems to comply with the news of the London hard fork.

For Taylor Monahan, founder and CEO of the MyCrypto platform specialized in cryptocurrency management, this group of companies might be spending more than USD 90 million a year in payment of fees in Ethereum. This payment in fees happens beyond the charge that gets transferred to its users.

As for the purses, most users have already said yes to the EIP-1559. The case of Metamask stands out for being, probably, the entity with the most relevant participation in decentralized finance (DeFi) and the ecosystem of play-to-earn games.

The Ethereum Foundation, which controls developments on this general-purpose blockchain, is also aware that advancements in wallets will be vital for EIP-1559 to unfold its full capacity.

The Foundation’s blog highlights that the advances would be ideal in cases of sudden congestion. If a tipping war happens, the purses can detect and track the congestion. They added that, in that case, they could bring users the option of setting a high or low priority for their transaction.

According to the developer Evan Van Ness, author of the newsletter “Week in Ethereum,” when the EIP-1559 is fully operational thanks to an ecosystem that adopts it massively, the user experience would improve exponentially.

On the other hand, some people rejected the supposed benefits of this improvement proposal. In this group are many miners who consider this EIP as confiscatory. Such is their stance that they came to organize protest measures that got not widely called.

Some users argue that EIP-1559 will not encourage the cheapest commissions in the network which, as has been said, is one of the biggest highlights around this improvement procedure.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Both parties continue the negotiations for the granting of a loan. Forty days after its adoption, bitcoin has already reported profits to the Salvadoran State.

The government of El Salvador is in conversations with the International Monetary Fund to access a loan of 1.3 billion dollars. Given the distrust of the entity regarding the adoption of bitcoin (BTC) as a legal currency in the nation, the president of the Salvadoran Central Bank clarified that the cryptocurrency would bring many benefits.

The entity headed by Kristalina Georgieva does not trust the potential benefits of bitcoin and considers that crypto-assets can bring significant risks at a macroeconomic, financial, and legal level.

However, the country led by Nayib Bukele has the conviction to change that position. For this reason, it remains firm in its project of requesting international financing to achieve the government’s social programs.

In this context, the president of the Central Bank of El Salvador, Douglas Rodríguez, clarified that the questioned adoption of bitcoin as a legal currency would not be an obstacle, but quite the opposite.

According to an interview reported by Bloomberg, the official stated that the cryptocurrency would go from being seen as a speculative asset to a legal means of payment.

The IMF will issue its most recent report on El Salvador’s economy and finances in November. This report could bring many benefits to the ongoing negotiations or delay a resolution even further.

El Salvador Already Made Money with Bitcoin

In addition to ratifying bitcoin as a currency in the country, Rodríguez also assured that the cryptocurrency created by Satoshi Nakamoto would allow substantial growth of the national economy than the one expected by the bank, that is, 9% for this year.

In October, the country highlighted an oversupply in the FIDEBITCOIN trust of at least USD 4 million. One month after the activation of the Bitcoin Law.

This FIDEBITCOIN trust met its creation to grant more liquidity to citizens who desire to exchange cryptocurrencies for dollars.

On the other hand, the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, recently revealed the construction of a veterinary hospital. The State had to use profits belonging to the rise in the price of bitcoin (BTC) to the FIDEBITCOIN trust.

This trust of USD 150 million brings liquidity for the conversion between BTC and US dollars to the users of the Chivo wallet.

On the other hand, from that trust came the money for the USD 30 bonus in bitcoin that each user of the Chivo application acquired.

According to president Bukele, The veterinary hospital would grant daily 384 consultations, 128 emergencies, 64 surgeries, 63 hospitalizations, 128 rehabilitations, 32 X-ray studies, and 32 CT scans.

The dog grooming service also got included in the list, with a capacity to attend at least 64 services per day. Bukele revealed the information with a video that shows what the veterinary hospital would look like once they finish it.

By: Jenson Nuñez

A Russian official recognized that the country could replace its US dollar reserves with cryptocurrencies as its de-dollarization plan advances.

As Russia moves toward de-dollarization as an alternative way to stop sanctions imposed by the United States of America government, some officials are pointing to cryptocurrencies as an alternative way along this path.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Pankin mentioned digital currencies in a recent interview. In there, he revealed his thoughts about the country’s intentions to reduce the share of the US dollar in deals with foreign partners and Russia’s international reserves. The official shared his statements with the Interfax media.

Pankin said when asked about the Russian government’s plans to deal with economic sanctions and the possible impacts of such restrictions on the local economy that they focus on de-dollarization, import-substitution, and consolidating technological independence.

Russia Could Replace Dollars with Cryptocurrencies

During the interview, Pankin highlighted arguments in favor of de-dollarization, concluding that the adoption could be a feasible option.

 On the other hand, the vice-minister assured that the reduction in the influence of the US dollar on the national economy and foreign trade operations contributes to a reduction in the “risks of sanctions” by the United States.

He said that even though this process to reduce dependence on the dollar relates to an increase in the costs of commercial and government financial transactions, it was preferable to the possibility of freezing funds.

The payments in US dollars go through US banks and the clearing system, allowing Washington to block any, in its opinion, suspicious transactions,” he explained.

In this regard, Pankin pointed out the high capacity of digital currencies to set up a reduction in the national reserves of the US dollar.

The deputy minister’s comment could also refer to the sovereign digital currency that Russia is currently developing. However, the representative added that such a replacement would need significant efforts by the government and its relations with other states.

These efforts might include re-building cooperation models established between jurisdictions regarding companies and new mechanisms for new settlement systems.

The Road to de-Dollarization

During the interview, the Russian official also assured that the nation is already setting up trade agreements with other countries to use currencies instead to replace the dollar; Although he did not indicate if this measure included cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Also, Pankin added that replacing the dollar with another currency is not an end of Russian policies but a defensive reaction and that the government takes to protect the economy.

The Russian government had no intention of applying such tactics to the euro or any other national currency.

Amid US sanctions, Russia has been taking various steps to replace the US dollar. This year, Russia’s Finance Ministry announced that the country’s $ 186 billion sovereign wealth fund was abandoning its dollar holdings to dramatically increase its holdings of Chinese yuan and include gold for the first time.

By: Jenson Nuñez