Last Week in Review: BTC ETFs and an ETH ETF?

The highlights from last week’s headline grabbers. All the important news, numbers and events from the world of crypto in one place

News from the block

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Are we going to see a spot Ethereum ETF soon?

• BlackRock CEO Larry Fink was hinting at the firm’s plans for a spot Ethereum exchange traded fund (ETF), commenting to CNBC that the Ethereum network could play a big role in the future of tokenisation.
  
  
• “I saw value in having an Ethereum ETF,” Fink said in an interview with CNBC on Friday. “These were just stepping stones towards tokenization, and I really believed this is where we were going to be going.”
  
  
• The world’s largest asset manager was among the first to recently get approval for a Bitcoin ETF from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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X (formerly Twitter) discontinued support for NFT profile pics

• The social media platform reportedly decided to call it quits on non-fungible token (NFT) profile pics, a paid feature X.
  
  
• The feature, no longer listed on the Premium support page for the site, allowed users to click on the profile picture and learn more about the NFT.

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2024 to be marked by uncertainty, say economists

• Economists warned of uncertainty in the global economy that year, due to “geopolitical strife, tight financing conditions, and the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence”, Reuters reported.
  
  
• The survey was conducted each year ahead of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meeting in Davos and included more than 60 chief economists from the private and public sectors.
  
  
• On the plus side, 70% of those surveyed said they thought that inflation had peaked.

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US inflation surprised analysts

• The Federal Reserve Bank in the US may have to wait a while before it starts lowering interest rates, as the latest inflation data from the US shows that inflation remains sticky.
  
  
• Inflation hit 3.4% over the year, up from 3.1% in November last year.
  
  
• US stocks were seemingly unfazed by the so-called hot inflation numbers.

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The first spot Bitcoin ETF approved in the US

• In what was described as a landmark decision for bitcoin and crypto, the SEC approved the first BTC ETF in the US, more than a decade after the first application.
  
  
• Trading of BTC ETFs, from investment managers such as BlackRock, ARK Investments, and Fidelity, began Thursday last week.
  

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TL;DID read

Everything you need to know about Bitcoin ETFs 

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Crunching the numbers

$1.4 billion – The total amount of spot BTC ETFs traded in the first two days of launching. 

94% – The percentage of economists surveyed ahead of the annual Davos meeting that believe artificial intelligence will boost productivity in high-income countries in the next five years. 

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