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Cryptocurrency prices have done well this year with Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash surging by double-digits. Most coins and tokens have outperformed traditional assets like stocks and commodities.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices have jumped in the past 30 days mostly because of the optimism surrounding ETFs. Blackrock, the biggest asset manager in the world, was the first company to apply for a spot ETF in June.

Shortly thereafter, other companies in the financial services industry like Invesco, WisdomTree, and Ark Invest all filed for their ETFs. Unlike in the previous applications, these companies introduced a surveillance clause in the funds.

It is still to early to determine whether the SEC will approve these funds. Besides, the agency has rejected similar applications in the past. Also, Gary Gensler was quoted saying that these applications were not adequate.

Still, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is not the only entity that has the final say on this. Thats because the SEC has been sued by the parent of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) in the US.

The company questioned the main reason for the SEC to deny firms with licenses to run their regulated ETFs. Analysts believe that the company has a strong case against the SEC.

Still, the biggest risk is that the trust could flop even when given the greenlight. In a note, analysts at JP Morgan warned that existing ETFs have attracted little investor interest. The report said:

Institutional investors seeking access to Bitcoin have avenues to do so. For example, they can invest in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust or ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), which I wrote about here. Alternatively, they can invest in spot ETFs listed in places like Canada and Europe.

Still, these funds have not attracted huge inflows. BITO recently crossed the $1 billion asset mark while GrayScale Bitcoin Trust has over $19 billion in assets. At its peak, GBTC had much more assets.

Therefore, if the SEC rejects Bitcoin spot ETF, it means that the possibility of other altcoins like Litecoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash getting their ETFs will be almost zero.

Also, if the funds are rejected and Grayscale loses in court, the strong rally we saw recently could become undone.

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JP Morgan has a warning for Bitcoin, BCH, Litecoin, Tron and ... - BanklessTimes

The cryptocurrency market traded lower on Wednesday, with Bitcoin going as low as $30,235 and Ether under $1,900. However, Thursday started on a bullish note, with Bitcoin surging to $31,480 and Ether jumping to almost $1,960 before retracing a bit.

As of writing, BTC is trading at $31,220, and Ether is at $1,940, according to CoinGecko.

The volatility started the day prior after the release of the minutes from Junes Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting that showed that almost all Fed officials judged that additional increases in the target federal funds rate during 2023 would be appropriate.

With some Fed officially even favoring a rate hike in June, this hawkish tone put pressure on not just crypto but also stocks ahead of the June jobs report scheduled for release on Friday.

Recent stress tests on banks showing that they are well-positioned to weather a severe recession and continue lending to qualified households may also propel FOMC to aggressively raise rates to bring down inflation without casting the US economy into recession.

The decline in Bitcoin price started during the July 4 holiday in the US, which resulted in July Bitcoin futures prices trading weaker in early trading on Wednesday, according to Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff.

The current pause and choppy trading at higher price levels is not bearish and suggests the bulls are storing up energy for another push higher in the near term, he said. The bulls have the firm overall near-term technical advantage.

On the upside, Bitcoin has resistance around $34.4k, so if BTC does continue upwards, we can at least see it test $35k in the near future. Going higher would see a strong resistance zone around $37k, breaking which can see the price seek liquidity around $48k. But such spikes in price also increase the likelihood of a correction. This means testing the support levels below $30k.

While the crypto sector started the day in the mix, derivatives markets have been signaling bullishness. Futures open interest (OI) for Bitcoin is now north of $12 billion, up from $10.4 billion at the beginning of June, albeit a bit lower than $13.4 billion on June 29, according to on-chain analytics firm Glassnode.

Crypto data provider CCData also revealed that institutional investors have been busy trading crypto futures, so much so that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) saw its best June for Bitcoin futures volumes, rising an astounding 28.6% to $37.9 billion. Eth-based instruments also saw a 10.8% increase, with over 97,000 ETH Futures contracts traded in June.

The USD value of the volume traded also jumped substantially, with BTC- and ETH-backed products collectively recording a 24.6% pump, with $46.8 billion changing hands the highest number since May 2022.

Bitcoin has been enjoying gains since last month, when it first surged above $31k in mid-June following multiple spot Bitcoin ETF filings, and has remained mostly stable despite the positive investor sentiment. The unveiling of a quantitative easing program in China is another positive, while the crypto market sees increased regulatory clarity in Singapore, Korea, and Thailand.

Interestingly, Prime Minister contender Pita Limjaroenrat, the leader of Thailands Move Forward Party, has been found to hold crypto, according to disclosures filed. His thousands of dollars worth of crypto is split between BTC, ETH, BNB, and ADA.

Amidst this, late on Wednesday, Larry Fink, the CEO of the $8.5 trillion asset manager BlackRock, gave the catalyst for the latest price action when he said in an interview that crypto could revolutionize finance.

We believe that if we can create more tokenization of assets and securities thats what bitcoin is it could revolutionize finance, said Fink, adding: Instead of investing in gold as a hedge against inflation, a hedge against the onerous problems of any one country, or the devaluation of your currency whatever country youre in, lets be clear, bitcoin is an international asset, its not based on any one currency and so it can represent an asset that people can play as an alternative.

As Bitcoin made attempts at recovery, altcoins experienced a sell-off, with Kaspa down the most among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by 8.3% in the past 24 hours. Radix, Fantom, Stellar, Gate, Woo Network, and Mina also recorded losses.

When it comes to the 24-hour gainers, the likes of FSX (8.6%), SOL (7.6%), CMOP (5.3%), PEPE (5.1%), Neo (4.2%), Monero (3.7%), and Maker (3%) are enjoying the greens. This has the total crypto market cap up by 2% to $1.256 trillion. However, it is the popular forks of the majors, Bitcoin and Ethereum, that are leading these performers.

Bitcoin fork Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has been enjoying an uptrend for the past 15 days. During this period, the digital asset has rallied 180%. BCH is also up 11.5% against USD on Thursday to now trade at $295.60. BCH is also up 8.8% against BTC, and its trading volume soaring by 143.9% to $1.18 bln from a day ago.

These gains came as Bitcoin became the center of institutional attention as well as increasing BCH trading volumes on South Korean exchanges. Additionally, the launch of Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Charles Schwab-backed EDX Markets, which supports BCH along with BTC, ETH, and LTC, contributed to the uptrend.

The price action led traders betting against Bitcoin cash to lose the highest amount in over two years as BCH surged to the $320 level last week. According to Coinalyze data, shorts and longs cumulatively lost over $25 million on BCH-tracked futures, which may also have contributed to the sudden spike.

This week, funding rates have fallen negative across all exchanges that list BCH futures, indicating that short traders are willing to pay long traders to remain in their positions.

BCH wasnt alone, though. Another Bitcoin fork, Bitcoin SVs (BSV) price, also jumped by 125% between June 20 and July 1. BSV is up 9.5% against USD and is currently trading at just above $46, while its trading volume increased by 12.30% to $40.6 mln. BSV is also in the green by 6.9% against BTC.

Just like Bitcoin forks are enjoying an uptrend, Ethereums fork Ethereum Classic (ETC) has also started rising in value.

ETC is the 26th largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of $2.8 billion. And at the time of writing, ETC has been trading at $19.81, up 4.1% against USD, 1.6% against BTC, and 2.38% against ETH. During this period, the trading volume for the altcoin only increased by 0.3% to $140 million.

In the past week, the price of ETC has recorded 9% gains and 15.5% in the last two weeks. However, 2023 wasnt really a good year for this altcoin as ETC only registered gains of 25.73% so far this year. While the price did rise, the price has been stuck in the $15 to $24 range during this time.

Over this past year, ETC jumped 31.2% while losing 88.14% of its value since hitting its all-time high (ATH) at $167 in May 2021.

Besides the general positive momentum in the broad crypto market, ETC price may be rising in line with ETH, which is up 62% year-to-date (YTD), much like how BCH and BSV jumped alongside BTC. However, compared to Bitcoins 86.42% upside in 2023, BCH has rallied 205.7% and BSV 10.23%.

ETC is the native cryptocurrency of Ethereum Classic, a blockchain project that was created when the second-largest crypto, Ethereums blockchain, split into two separate chains in 2016. The split was due to a disagreement among members of its community regarding how to handle the massive hack on a decentralized Ethereum-based platform called The DAO.

A year after Ethereum was launched, the network saw one of its most successful ICOs, The DAO, which accumulated 11 million ETH from over 18,000 investors, and even got hacked. Many community members proposed rolling back the Ethereum blockchain to rescue the affected investors, while others argued that doing so would set the wrong precedent for future bailouts. The majority of the community voted to restore the lost funds through a hard fork, which split the chain into two separate networks.

After the fork, the old chain became known as Ethereum Classic, which has a relatively small community and believes in the principle that Code is Law. When the split happened, those who held ETH received the exact same amount of ETC in their wallets for free. During the bull run of 2017, ETCs price went to hit its then peak of $42, only to crash as low as $3 during the following crypto-wide bear market.

Unlike Ethereum, which doesnt have a hard cap on how many native tokens will be created, Ethereum Classic made changes to its monetary policy to be deflationary, meaning the number of tokens created decreases over time to make it a better store of value. ETCs supply is capped at 210.7 million, and its block reward declines by 20% every 5 million blocks.

However, Ethereum Classic remains a security concern. In August 2020, the blockchain suffered three 51% attacks in August 2020 with Terry Culver, CEO of ETC Labs, said at the time that the threat of 51% attacks on Proof of Work blockchains is a universal problem and introduced a series of defensive mining measures.

While ETCs price continues to see bursts of momentum whenever bullish sentiments return to the crypto market, Ethereum Classic continues to struggle with adoption. Much like how Bitcoin hard forks activity and usage level is nowhere near the crypto king, ETC doesnt enjoy a considerable use case or user base either.

That said, ETC closed off June with a 13% increase in price, and if Ethereum Classic manages to keep up with this momentum, it can surge even more in July. On the other hand, if selling pressure prevails instead, the ETC price could drop to the $18 level.

Click here to learn how to buy Ethereum Classic (ETC) in just four steps.

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After Bitcoin's Hard Forks, Ethereum Classic (ETC) Enjoys an ... - Securities.io

An Ethereum Improvement Proposal, dubbed EIP-6969, is looking to implement Contract-Secured Revenue (CSR) on Ethereum L2s.

CSR refers to a series of smart contracts that enable developers to earn revenue whenever others interact with the code they have deployed on-chain.

Kevin Owocki, one of the co-authors of EIP-6969, told Blockworks that his firsthand experience as a builder in the Web3 space made him aware of the difficulties involved in monetizing the products he had actively helped create.

There are really not that many opportunities to monetize in a way thats sustainable and not very speculative, Owocki said.

After learning about CSRs from the Canto Layer 1 network, a permissionless general-purpose blockchain, Owocki saw an opportunity to reward developers for their efforts sustainably and wanted to bring this idea into the EVM ecosystem.

On Ethereum Layer 2 solutions today, every transaction that calls a contract on the network sends a portion of the gas consumed to the sequencer as a fee.

EIP-6969 modifies this slightly by sending a portion of those gas fees to the developer of that smart contract as well.

When you deploy a contract onto the Ethereum network, the address you deployed that contract with would be attached to the contract, Owocki said. However much execution time EVM spends inside of your smart contract, thatll be mapped proportionally and a percentage of the fee revenue will return to that address.

Owocki notes that this new approach offers an opportunity to bridge the gap between Layer 2 solutions in need of more developers, and developers who are seeking avenues for generating revenue.

As Ethereum smart contracts are designed with composability in mind, Owocki believes that EIP-6969 could set up a strong foundation for the evolving open-source infrastructure that can expand the Ethereum ecosystem.

We have all these open-source lego bricks that exist in the Ethereum ecosystem, I as a hacker could walk into a hackathon and build something in a weekend that would have taken a bank 15 years ago $100 million to build because I can get so much software off the shelf, he said. So with EIP-6969, we really wanted to respect that modular architecture of the EVM.

This means that revenue will not just be given to a smart contract at the top execution level, but as you go down the stack, each contractor that has contributed to modifying the code will be given a portion of the revenue.

What this does is it incentivizes the creation of infrastructure, because people who might not have a business model right now are all of a sudden going to get more and more revenue as more people use their deployed version of [the smart contract], he said.

Every time an infrastructure is used, the gas fee trickles down to everyone who had participated in building the infrastructure, creating a reward loop that incentivizes more people to maintain open-source infrastructure.

CSR currently exists in the Canto ecosystem, Owocki notes. In the EVM ecosystem, the next step will be to wait for the EIP to be accepted by the community so that the development team can create a canonical spec for how it would operate in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Once that is complete, Owocki said that the next step would be to work with L2s to implement it into their ecosystems. This is expected to happen within the next six months.

The reason why we can move faster on this is because were deploying it to layer twos, he notes. This is not a specification that is meant for the Ethereum mainnet. Ethereum mainnet needs to be credibly neutral, and it needs to be capture resistant. I think its very important to prototype this on layer twos where the stakes are lower.

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This Ethereum Proposal Wants to Bring Revenue Back to Developers - Blockworks

Under PoS, Ethereum block validators, also known as stakers, lock up a portion of their ether (ETH) as collateral to participate in the network's consensus mechanism. In return for their participation, stakers earn rewards in the form of new protocol emissions and transaction fees.

To fully achieve the promise of this innovation, a standardized benchmark can be produced by capturing and publishing the daily, annualized mean of on-chain rewards across all validators. It would be difficult to manipulate because of the inherent transparency, replicability and immutability of the blockchain in contrast, say, to the infamously manipulated LIBOR benchmark that powered traditional finance (TradFi) credit markets for years.

Based on a preliminary analysis of how such a benchmark would behave,

average protocol emissions appear to trend downward as new validators come online. But its clear that the rate skyrockets with material increases to network activity resulting from a flight to safety (FTXs insolvency) or new network activity (the recent PEPE meme coin frenzy).

A standardized ETH staking rate will provide immediate utility as:

As a benchmark, an ETH staking rate would work similarly to traditional instruments like overnight index swap (OIS) rates delivering reference rate utility to market participants. From new crypto-native Sharpe ratios to pricing benchmarks, a standardized ETH staking rate can be used to discount future cash flows letting investors better assess the present value of their investments in the Ethereum ecosystem.

A standard staking rate would form the underpinning of an important new tool for risk transfer. Interest among natural hedgers, especially validators, and prospective speculators will result in the inevitable formation of a forward curve resulting in swaps, futures and other derivatives. Basis swaps with traditional rates or cross-currency swaps with fiat currencies could provide an interesting new crypto rate onramp, while also allowing structured products to proliferate.

A new staking rate could unlock the next generation of financial products while serving as a building block of Ethereums monetary policy. As such, CESR represents an important development in the evolution of the Ethereum ecosystem and a new frontier for innovation in the world of decentralized finance and beyond.

NOTE: CoinFund recently announced that it had partnered with CoinDesk Indices to launch CESR, a composite ether staking rate.

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Ethereum Staking Needs Its (Honest) LIBOR - CoinDesk

Starknet, an open-source framework that aims to bring scalability and privacy to decentralized applications (dApps) built on Ethereum, has seen dramatic growth in various DeFi apps on the network over the past few months, with its total value locked (TVL) recently hitting a new all-time high

As of today, Starknet TVL stands at $10.49 million, a whopping ten-fold increase from $1.449 million at the beginning of March, according to DefiLlama.

TVL is a metric commonly used in decentralized finance (DeFi) to measure the total value of assets locked or deposited within a particular protocol, platform, or smart contract. It can serve as an indicator of the overall activity and popularity of a project.

Developed by Israeli-based company StarkWare, Starknet is designed to address the limitations of the Ethereum blockchain, such as high transaction fees and slow transaction processing times, by enabling off-chain computations and data storage while still leveraging the blockchain's security guarantees.

I certainly cannot give any investment advice, but there are many, many developers that understand that in order to unleash Ethereums scale reaching a global demand you need new, safe, and battle-tested technologies, StarkWare president and co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson told Decrypt, adding that Starknet is already recognized as a hell of a technology stack."

To achieve this, Starknet leverages a layer-2 scaling technique known as zero-knowledge rollups, which bundles hundreds of thousands of transactions together off-chain and then verifies them on-chain for just a fraction of the cost.

Source: DefiLlama

While Starknets current TVL may be much lower than that of some other protocols in the same category, the protocols TVL was just about $800,000 at the start of the year.

The major player responsible for more than 57% (over $6 million) of Starknet TVL dominance is JediSwap, a fully permissionless AMM that enables users to swap, earn, and build instantaneously on the decentralized, community-driven protocol.

Other members of the layer-2 market slice, like Arbitrum and Optimism, for example, command TVLs of $2.4 billion and $884 million, respectively. This is in part due to the swift adoption among DeFi heavyweights on each network, including Uniswap, Aave, and Curve.

Speaking about other likely drivers behind Starknets growing popularity, the StarkWare chief mentioned Cairo, the Rust-inspired programming language, which is the most modern and best smart contract language out there that developers are flocking to, said Ben-Sasson.

The next thing that everyone is excited about, according to Ben-Sasson, is the next upgrade of the networkversion 0.12 which is due to be released in June and is expected to result in a significant increase in the throughput on Starknet.

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DeFi Projects Built on Ethereum Scaling Solution Starknet Hit $10M - Decrypt