Pa Simon Peters, Crypto Asset Analyst at trading and investment platform eToro.
Bitcoin ended the week down 1% despite Friday’s PCE data showing a slowdown in US inflation.
Headline and core PCE, both for the month and the year, were in line with analysts’ forecasts. The data also marked the lowest annual rate since March 2021.
We expect more inflation data to be released in mid-July, as well as the Fed meeting at the end of the month, to see if it could be a catalyst for bitcoin price growth.
Ethereum and solana ended up up 1% and 14% respectively last week following positive news surrounding spot ETF approvals and new filings. More information below.
EXCELLENT NEWS
VanEck presents the Spot Solana ETF
Last week, VanEck became the first asset manager to file an S-1 filing with the US SEC for a Solana spot ETF called the VanEck Solana Trust, which will be listed on the Cboe BZX exchange.
As emphasized in the presentation, the fund’s investment objective is to mirror the performance of SOL, the Solana network’s native crypto-asset. However, betting on SOL for profit or other gains will not be allowed.
Solana rose 8% on Thursday following the news and is currently trading at $147, down 40% from its all-time high of $210.
Shortly after VanEck, 21Shares filed an S-1 filing with the SEC for a spot Solana ETF, the 21Shares Core Solana ETF.
Coinbase Announces Partnership With Stripe
Last week, Coinbase announced a partnership with payment processor Stripe to “increase on-chain adoption and provide a faster and cheaper financial infrastructure.”
Coinbase will add Stripe as a way for its customers to buy crypto assets using credit cards or Apple Pay in the Coinbase wallet.
Stripe will add the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin to the Base network to its crypto payments product, as well as its fiat-to-crypto conversion platform, which allows people to securely convert their fiat currencies to crypto.
The partnership further underscores Stripe’s commitment to crypto-assets after it announced in April that it would support payments with stablecoin USDC and Solana, Ethereum and Polygon.
For Coinbase, since the launch of Base last August, the network has become one of the fastest-growing tier 2 in the crypto space, and this partnership with Stripe could further increase its popularity.
Introducing Blinks to Solana
Last week, the Solana developers introduced a new feature called Blinks (links to blockchain), which now allows users to convert on-chain activities such as buying or trading cryptoassets or NFTs, voting or donating cryptoassets into shareable URLs that can be published on any website.
Essentially, the general public can now take actions with Solana without leaving the website, platform or app they are currently on.
The introduction of Blinks may mean greater use or adoption of Solana compared to others blockchain in the coming months and years. It has the potential to increase the number of active users and transactions on the chain, which in turn could be positive for SOL’s own price in the future.
Backpack and Phantom wallets currently support Blinks.
Ethereum Spot ETF launch delayed until mid-July
It now seems more likely that the spot Ethereum ETF will launch in mid-July, rather than this week as initially suggested and cited in several reports.
The SEC took more time to comment on and return the latest Ethereum spot ETF S-1 filings and required them to be submitted by July 8, according to Erik Balchunas, lead analyst at Bloomberg ETF.
In late May, the SEC approved 19b-4 agreements allowing US exchanges (Cboe BZX, NYSE Arca and Nasdaq) to list and trade spot Ethereum ETFs.
Since then, the community has been waiting for the approval of S-1 registration statements filed by ETF providers, which are also required to launch Ethereum spot ETFs.