The Week in Review: US jobs numbers, BTC ETFs set new record, and Solana ETFs?

A snappy rundown of this week’s crypto headlines.

US Jobs report today is a big one

• The latest employment numbers from the US, set for release today, will be an important indicator of where the Fed might go with interest rates. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will announce May’s numbers at 08:30 Eastern Standard Time, 14h30 in South Africa.
  
  
• CNN reports that economists are expecting an unemployment rate to hold steady at 3.9%. The Fed wants to see the labour market taper off, an indication of a cooling economy, without spiralling into an unemployment crisis.
  
  
• “The labor market is still strong and solid; but at the same time, it is moving toward that ‘soft landing’ scenario, a narrative that we’ve been talking about for so long,” Elizabeth Crofoot, senior economist at labor data analytics firm Lightcast, told CNN, referencing the process of reining in inflation without sending the economy into recession. “This is it,” she said. “This is [the soft landing].”

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European Central Bank to start cutting interest rates

• The European Central Bank joined the central banks of Canada, Sweden and Switzerland in announcing on Thursday that they will start trimming rates.
  
  
• The ECB cut rates from 4% to 3.75%. It’s the first rate cut by the bank since 2019. “Further cuts in September and December remain our central case,” HSBC economist Fabio Balboni was quoted by Reuters. “But if the recent resilience in services inflation proves sustained, we see increasing chances that the ECB might have to be more cautious on the way down.”

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BTC ETFs saw record days of positive inflows 

• Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US saw a total inflow of $105.12 million on Monday, The Block reported, marking the fifteenth consecutive day of positive inflows. By Friday that same week, the ETFs continued to see inflows, setting a new record of 18 days of consecutive inflows.
  
  
• The 15-day inflows marked the second longest positive streak since the ETFs’ launch in January this year, with the longest consecutive rally lasted 17 days, before the new record on Friday.

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Solana, Cardano and XRP ETFs? 

• “I think it’s just a matter of time, and it’s inevitable there’s gonna be an XRP ETF, there’s gonna be a Solana (SOL) ETF, there’s gonna be a Cardano (ADA) ETF, and that’s great,” Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse said at the recent Consensys event.
  
  
• Garlinghouse added that there are significant regulatory hurdles in the way of approval, but it will be “speed bumps” in the greater scheme of things, CoinDesk reported. 

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TL;DID read

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In this free report by Luno, we track crypto development on the continent, and we look at how a clear regulatory framework in South Africa could bring crypto into the same conversation as traditional investments, spurred on by institutional involvement.

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