Five major cryptocurrency stories made headlines this week. Major asset managers are filing for Ethereum ETFs as the SEC makes another decision. Terraform Labs, known for creating the Terra/Luna ecosystem, made its first major acquisition after Do Kwon's departure, while Jump Trading continued its move away from cryptocurrencies by spinning off Wormhole. Finally, South Korea's pension fund bought millions of Coinbase shares when Ordinal-like tokens made waves on Polygon.
Let's take a closer look at each story in this roundup.
Latest Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF Updates
Black Rock and Fidelity, two major asset management firms, have filed Ethereum spot ETFs with the SEC. BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust aims to mirror the price of Ethereum, with Coinbase as custodian. Fidelity's presentation emphasized the importance of such ETFs for protecting U.S. investors, arguing that investors are looking for riskier ways to gain exposure.
Meanwhile, the SEC has delayed its decision on the Hashdex Nasdaq Ethereum ETF, which would include both spot ether and futures, until January 2024. The SEC's delay, citing the need for more time to consider the proposal and related issues, also affected the decision on a Hashdex bitcoin futures ETF application.
Terraform Labs Makes Acquisition While Do Kwon Is In Jail
Terraform Labs, known for developing the Terra blockchain, has acquired Pulsar Finance, a cross-chain portfolio management and analytics startup. Despite ongoing legal disputes, including a major case with the SEC over allegations of selling unregistered securities, Terraform continues to build its capabilities while its original co-founder, Do Kwon, is in prison in Montenegro.
Chris Amani, who replaced Kwon as CEO, emphasized the strategic importance of the Pulsar acquisition, which will enhance Terraform's technology and facilitate the launch of cross-chain applications. Established in 2021, Pulsar supports 96 networks and over 700 protocols and offers tools to track a variety of tokens, DeFi holdings, and NFTs.
South Korean pension fund bets on Coinbase
South Korea's National Pension Service (NPS), the world's third-largest pension fund by assets, has made a significant foray into the cryptocurrency space by purchasing $19.9 million worth of Coinbase shares . This purchase, reported in the latest NPS holdings report, marks the first time the pension fund, which had $755 billion in assets under management in June, has included a cryptocurrency-related security in its holdings portfolio. investments.
Notably, the NPS has a policy against direct investment in crypto assets, although it had previously indicated potential interest in investing in crypto exchanges.
Jump Trading splits from Wormhole amid shift in focus
Jump Trading has announced the transformation of its cross-chain protocol Wormhole into an independent business entity. This strategic move comes amid a significant downsizing of Jump Crypto, the company's cryptocurrency division, which has seen a 50% reduction in staff from its peak of 150 in 2022. This shift in focus and resources comes after Jump Trading reduced its activities in the cryptocurrency market. due to US regulatory uncertainties and ended its long-standing partnership with Robinhood.
Notably, Jump Crypto quickly intervened to restore ETH worth $323 million lost in a major Wormhole attack in early 2022, which marked one of the largest exploits in the history of decentralized finance. Jump Crypto was also hit by the crashes of crypto exchange FTX and algorithmic stablecoin Terra.
Polygon saw a surge in transactions with Ordinals-like tokens
The Polygon network experienced a increase in daily transaction volume, attributed to the large-scale minting of โPRC-20โ tokens, an Ordinals-inspired token standard exclusive to Polygon. This increase, which saw daily transactions rise from 2.89 million to over 6 million, caused a significant increase in gas rates, which peaked at over 7,000 Gwei before leveling off.
Despite the temporary increase in transaction costs, fees on the Polygon network remained significantly lower than those on the Ethereum mainnet, highlighting Polygon's efficiency and cost-effectiveness for blockchain transactions.
Disclaimer: This article was produced with the help of OpenAI's ChatGPT 3.5/4 and reviewed and edited by our editorial team.
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