First Mover Americas: Crypto Extends Slide Despite SEC Ether ETF Filings Approval

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The SEC’s approval of spot ether ETF regulatory filings has yet to spur a rally in crypto prices, which extended their slide during the Asian and European mornings. BTC has lost more than 3.4% in the last 24 hours to trade around $67,400 while ETH is down around 4.5% at $3,700. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), measuring the broader digital asset market, has lost over 3.3%. Ether ETFs are not yet cleared to trade, because the SEC still needs to approve their S-1 filings before investors can buy them. The approval came as a surprise to many. After clearing spot bitcoin ETFs in January, the SEC didn’t seem to engage much with issuers on ether ETFs, but that changed in recent days.

Bitcoin and ether both experienced wild swings in the run-up to the SEC’s ETF decision on Thursday. ETH tumbled to $3,500 before surging to $3,900 as the first reports came through that approval of some filings was imminent. BTC, meanwhile, sank below $66,500, then spiked to $68,300 before settling just below $68,000. Liquidations across all leveraged crypto derivative positions soared to over $350 million during the day, the most since May 1, CoinGlass data shows. The bulk of the positions were longs betting on rising prices, worth roughly $250 million, suggesting that over-leveraged traders were caught off-guard by the sudden price plunge.

Kabosu, the Shiba Inu dog who inspired the dogecoin meme and thereafter the DOGE cryptocurrency, died at the age of 17. Kabosu’s picture inspired the creation of DOGE in 2013, initially starting off as a joke currency. DOGE’s success later birthed a whole cohort of dog-themed tokens such as SHIB and FLOKI, which have since cumulatively become one of the industry’s biggest sectors. “We will be holding a farewell party for Kabo-chan on Sunday, May 26th. It will be held at Flower Kaori in Kotsu no Mori, Narita City, from 1pm to 4pm,” her owner wrote in a blog post.

Chart of the Day

• The heatmap shows the liquidation data in the crypto market over the last 24 hours, as recorded by Coinglass.

• It shows the unusually high figure of nearly $150 million ($100 million of which is longs) in ether futures being liquidated.

• The figure is double BTC’s amount – a very rare instance.

• This comes on the back of record open interest and the volatility around the ETF event.

• Source: Coinglass

– Shaurya Malwa, Jamie Crawley

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