Daily Update:

Macro

• BlackRock plans to launch a Bitcoin ETP in Europe, with the fund likely to be registered in Switzerland. Currently, BlackRock’s iShares BTC Trust is the largest U.S. based Bitcoin ETF, with just shy of $60B AUM. 
• This week so far has seen positive inflows for existing Spot ETH ETF products in the U.S. In particular, inflows amounted to $307.8M on Tuesday, the third largest single-day inflow since launch. Ethereum products have had positive inflows through the week, contrasting with Spot BTC ETFs which registered $234.4M in outflows on Monday, before paring back those outflows on Tuesday and Wednesday. We have seen previously with the Bitcoin Spot ETFs how a sustained period of net inflows coincided with a significant rally in spot price (Q1 24), and saw the same for Ethereum in the post-election period, though this was not sustained.

• ETH’s implied volatility term structure has disinverted, following days of a sustained inversion. Perp funding rates for Ethereum are still negative, with 7-day realised volatility deviating significantly from 1-week and 1-month ATM implied vol. 

• SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who is leading the SEC Crypto Task Force launched in January, has outlined her top 10 priorities for the task force highlighting the “legal imprecision” of the previous SEC administration. 
• Some of the key priorities of the task force include:

1. Properly defining the security status of crypto assets under the securities laws
2. Providing clarity on whether crypto-lending and staking programs will be covered by existing securities laws
3. Assist SEC staff in considering requests to modify existing features of current exchange-traded products, such as to allow for staking and in-kind creations and redemptions.

• Pierce did caveat the final point by stating that, before those changes can be confirmed, the Commission may need to “make progress on custody and other issues” first.

DeFi

• 0G Foundation has created an $88.88M fund, with investment from Hack VC, Delphi Ventures, Bankless Ventures and OKX Ventures and others, to accelerate AI agent- DeFi projects (DeFAI agents).
• Blocksquare has launched its Notarized Real Estate Tokenization Framework in Luxembourg, allowing property owners to tokenize their land registry rights.

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This Week’s Calendar:

Charts Of The Day: