The first week of 2024 has been full of news regarding the world of cryptocurrencies, and in particular the latest ones about the Bitcoin market.
In fact, despite the festive atmosphere, trading volumes have been significantly high, clearly higher, for example, compared to those of the previous week.
It has been a very explosive start to the year.
The latest news on ETFs and the world of cryptocurrencies
The main focus has been on the news about the approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the USA.
In particular, on Wednesday 3rd, false news spread regarding the postponement of the SEC’s decision regarding the approval or rejection of the ETFs.
This fake news triggered a sequence of sales, probably motivated by simple profit-taking, which caused the BTC price to drop below $42,000.
However, the news quickly turned out to be false, and already the next day the price returned to $44,000.
Yesterday, news spread regarding the conclusion of the review and modification process of the requests sent to the SEC, and today there are circulating news about a possible approval that could even come as early as today.
It is possible that the news regarding the possible launch on the US stock exchanges of Bitcoin spot ETFs is the basis for the rise in recent months, with the price of BTC going from $27,000 to over $40,000 in about two months.
Bitcoin (BTC)
If the news about Bitcoin spot ETFs has captured the most attention, the birthday of the Bitcoin blockchain certainly did not go unnoticed.
In fact, on Wednesday, January 3, 2024, we celebrated the 15 years since the first block of the Bitcoin blockchain was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.
But the news that has interested the most are still those about price forecasts, especially regarding 2024.
While on one hand, the markets seem to be betting on a continuation in the coming days and weeks of a fluctuation between $40,000 and $50,000, on the medium to long term, a little more optimism seems to prevail.
It should not be forgotten that in March the Fed could start cutting interest rates, and that in April there will be the fourth halving in BTC history. Furthermore, in case of success of spot ETFs in the markets, it is possible that the price of Bitcoin could increase.
Let’s not forget some research that has shown how the interest of large institutional investors in Bitcoin is constantly growing, and that it could continue in the future.
Ethereum (ETH)
Regarding Ethereum, the most important news seems to be related to Vitalik Buterin’s statements about future developments. The renowned co-founder of Ethereum has updated the roadmap, indicating that there is still much to be done.
There has also been a lot of talk about short-term developments, such as the launch of a new testnet and the February update.
Ethereum remains a rapidly evolving project, with many developments and a lot of ongoing work.
Even the Ethereum ecosystem is trying to expand beyond itself, thanks for example to the acquisition of Solscan, the main explorer of Solana, by Etherscan, the main explorer of Ethereum.
In fact, there has also been a lot of talk about the possibility that after the launch of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the USA, spot ETH ETFs will also be launched, but this is a discussion that will become even more pressing after the approval of the first ones.
Latest news on cryptocurrencies and major altcoins
As for other cryptocurrencies, excluding stablecoins, there has been a lot of talk about some particularly significant price movements and some new releases.
The launch of XAI by Binance has attracted a lot of attention, thanks to a +200% daily increase. The all-time high of TIA (Celestia) has also been talked about.
To note that in December there was a real boom in terms of trading volumes on crypto exchanges, and this does not only concern Bitcoin or Ethereum. The crypto winter that started with the bear market of 2022 is now behind us, and probably in December 2023 a sort of crypto spring has begun.
There is a lot of interest in some layer-2 solutions of Ethereum, particularly Arbitrum and Optimism, in addition to the usual Polygon. To be honest, though, this is not news, because Ethereum fees have been so high for a while now that it definitely favors the use of more cost-effective solutions like layer-2.
There is still talk of memecoins, although perhaps a little less than in the past months. For example, the new memecoin on Topolino (Mickey Mouse) caused a stir after the copyright on the famous Disney character expired.
The stablecoin
As usual, we also talked about stablecoin.
The dominance of attention towards USDT (Tether) continues to prevail on all, as it continues to grow to the point of reaching its all-time high in terms of market capitalization.
But the most important news concerned other stablecoins.
For example, it has been reported that GUSD (Gemini USD) has lost over 90% of its market capitalization from its peak. Gemini is a major second-tier US crypto exchange, but its stablecoin has not been successful. On the other hand, the competition is now very strong.
Another important news is the listing on Binance of a stablecoin anchored to the euro.
Speaking of stablecoins on the euro, it has been learned that Circle has decided to integrate EURC on Solana as well.
As usual, the crypto market is now so extensive that it includes many crypto projects that are very different from each other, so the news is always plentiful, although not all particularly important.
The last week, however, has also been characterized by several important news that seem to indicate an increasing maturity of this sector.