Why ether is outperforming bitcoin by nearly 10% so far this year: CNBC Crypto World

today ether inches closer to the $3,000 level after reaching its year-to-date High yesterday digital currency group objects to a proposed deal between a subsidiary Genesis and the New York State Attorney General and Cal contributor Rich Ry explains why he thinks 2024 will be a big year for crypto welcome to cnbc's crypto world I'm Jordan Smith crypto prices in the green today as of noon Eastern Bitcoin held steady above 50 $1,000 ether increased more than 1.2% trading close to $3,000 and salana traded pretty flat at 104 all right let's talk about the top stories digital currency group has doubts about a deal between its subsidiary Genesis and the New York State Attorney General back on February 8th Genesis filed a proposal in bankruptcy court to settle the New York AG's claims that the crypto lender defrauded investors that settlement needs to be approved by the court but it would see the AG's office paid only after payments were made made to customers as part of the deal Genesis agreed to stop conducting business in New York Genesis would pay customers the value of their funds at the time of the bankruptcy filing and if you remember crypto prices were much lower in January 2023 when Genesis filed for bankruptcy protection after that repayment the remaining assets would be turned over to the AG who would distribute that money back to unsecured creditors meaning customers would get more money well yesterday digital currency group objected to that settlement proposal in a new filing arguing the would take value from lower classes of creditors and redistribute them to Preferred ones the company argued that Genesis had given away the entire residual value of its estate to the New York AG earlier this month dcg also objected to an amended bankruptcy plan from Genesis arguing it would overpay a certain class of creditors next a Texas crypto company and an industry group are suing the SEC claiming it overstepped its Authority in regulating crypto the company called leg elex plans to launch a crypto platform called legit exchange but wants to list accet the SEC has deemed Securities well the company launched a lawsuit with the crypto Freedom Alliance of Texas to challenge the sec's jurisdiction in the claim the two groups say the SEC lacks legal authority to regulate most digital assets and that Commissioners themselves have said Congress hasn't granted the authority to the agency to do so now one thing to note about leg elex it's a relatively new company with no product yet its first post on X is only from a week ago on February 15th and its domain legit. exchange it's registered in Iceland but the crypto Freedom Alliance of Texas launched last year and has members from places like Andrew and Horowitz Bank capitals crypto unit blockchain capital and more now we reached out to the SEC lelex and the crypto Freedom Alliance of Texas but didn't hear back right away all right back to markets for our main story with Bitcoin holding steady above $51,000 and ether crossing the $3,000 mark this week for the first time since April of 2022 crypto world's Talia Kaplan spoke spoke with Coreal contributor Rich Ry about what's driving the recent rally and he also weighs in on the potential impact of the upcoming Bitcoin having event on miners SO bitcoin's trading above $ 51,800 as of around 11:30 this morning with a cryptocurrency hitting a year-to-date high of just under $53,000 that's according to coin metrics meanwhile ether crossed above $3,000 earlier this week for the first time since April of 2022 hitting a year-to-date high of $3,032 yesterday now Bitcoin is up more than 21% so far this year and ether is up even more so I'm wondering what do you think is driving crypto prices right now and why do you think ether is outperforming Bitcoin so far this year do you think the expectation that spot ether ETFs will likely wi approval now that spot Bitcoin ETFs are trading here in the US as part of the equation so I do think the the ET ETF narrative in ethereum is what's driving the the price appreciation today and if you look at you know back year we go at you know 2023 bitcoin's trading at you know 15,000 you know in early January now it's you know 518 as you mentioned earlier and a lot of that has been driven by this institutionalization of the asset class and that continual bid that we're seeing from you know institutions all around and there there's really no signs of that slowing down I think there's already been five billion plus of net inflows since since these you know spot ETFs first got approved which has blown away even you know the most bullish analyst expectations there's been a you know transposition of that into uh into ethereum I think as kind of a forward-looking trade so do you think the SEC will approve spat ether ETFs now that spat Bitcoin ETFs are Al in the US I mean the agency is due to give decisions on those applications beginning in May Black Rock Invesco Arc and Vanek are among the firms in line for approval as well as gr scale which is seeking to convert its existing ethereum trust into an ETF so what do you think will happen there so this might be an unpopular opinion at the moment um but I actually don't think we we're going to see it in in uh in April or May of this year but I do think potentially later this year I think the SEC is a established latory body that's going to want data points here and I think we haven't seen enough in the the Bitcoin spot ETF Market to get enough of a go forward read There ethereum is more complex asset there there's there's more pieces that under the hood plus there's been a very different relationship between the SEC and ethereum I think to put that politically over the years so all 10 of the spot Bitcoin ETFs that are trading in the US are in the green with most of them climbing around 10% since launching on January 11th on top of that as you mentioned they continue to see strong inflows so what do you think about these numbers and how do you think the approval of these investment vehicles impacted crypto sentiment as a whole so the the approval of the spot ETFs were were just you know flat out massive one there's just the accessibility piece where it's you now the largest uh asset managers in the world can get access to the next best thing to spot Bitcoin for the first time but then also Bitcoin now has a legitimacy of being uh of being an exchange traded product for for the first time in a way that many thought would never be possible I remember thinking the ETF was going to get approved in 2018 you know been wrong so many times as as the years have gone on but I think this is really the the next wave of crypto adoption and I think when we think about the inflows so many of the largest you know raas institutional asset managers haven't even been fully putting their sales teams to work yet this is still early folks want data points there's all the different people that haven't you know maybe pulled the trigger on their on their retirement accounts yet so I think as we look into the havening and some of these other Catalyst I think we're going to see continual you know bid from from all these different participants and it's it's really you know something to be seen now you mentioned the Bitcoin having so let's focus on that it's set to take place in a couple of months so what do you think the impact will be on prices and on miners focusing on price first historically these events have been positive for the price of Bitcoin so what do you think are the factors contributing to the positive price movement in that regard so The Happening has traditionally been very bullish for for Bitcoin and I think we'll continue to see that this cycle as well although with the you know longer term approach of future happenings you know with the ETF Etc we should see a dampening of volatility but at least now we're actually going into a this time is different with the happening where you actually have tons of of bid on the ETF which in theory could be even more of a catalyst for continued price appreciation going into the going into the havening I think the beginning of this year many folks thought that 2024 would actually be a period of more or less consolidation in Bitcoin but it seems like it might actually be an expansion cycle and is potentially going to be leading the the quote unquote Bull Run for for crypto over this next cycle and I think when it comes to the miners you're seeing you a little bit more potentially speculative Behavior than we've seen in in other Cycles where there's always been that question of do you invest in more rigs or do you just hold spot Bitcoin where you've got the potential to to have the Bitcoin price appreciation make up for that Delta so it's been really interesting to watch but I do think this happening is different and it it's going to be very interesting you know come April of this year what the market does what else are you focused on in 2024 especially as a builder so in 2024 I think one of the most popular narratives that we're seeing is is scaling Bitcoin I think we've seen you know as we do every having cycle Bitcoin comes back into fogue a little bit and becomes this shelling point for people both inside and outside of crypto CTO but now the focus isn't just on bitcoin the Bas layer asset it's all about scaling Bitcoin to try to unlock additional utility for for Bitcoin holders Bitcoin holders today have been you know just limited to digital gold which in itself is a fine use case however so many of these Bitcoin holders want more whether it's non-custodial Bitcoin staking or if it's full Bitcoin Defi and it's Solutions like core Stacks Etc that are all trying to offer these to their various constituents and you might say hey why now well one we're seeing this you know this outsized demand for again nfts and tokens things like that on top of Bitcoin but also Bitcoin now is a trillion dollar asset class once again and I think if we look into you know the further evolution of this cycle it's probably several trillion and with these Bitcoin scaling Solutions if they can capture even just a fraction of the total Bitcoin that's out there you're talking about another trillion plus dollars coming into D5 protocols as a whole and some of the scaling Solutions will will get quite large so I think Bitcoin is popular again with both users Builders and and the miners as well are kind of coming back into uh back into Center Stage once again which drives a lot of media cycle and interest all right that's all for crypto world today we'll be back again tomorrow and we'll see you [Music] then

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Id: XbksqlGrTVI

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 22 2024