![\"This](\"https:\/\/img.decrypt.co\/insecure\/rs:fit:1536:0:0:0\/plain\/https:\/\/cdn.decrypt.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Coins6.2%402x.png@webp\")
<\/span>With each passing week, it\u2019s getting easier to talk about crypto\u2019s <\/span>relative<\/span><\/i> stability compared to its performance in recent history\u2014even just a year ago. A cursory glance at some of the headlines of this column <\/span>over the year<\/span><\/a> reveals we\u2019ve had more slow news weeks than otherwise in 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n However, we\u2019ve still come a long way since New Year\u2019s Day, when market leader Bitcoin (BTC) sold for roughly $16.5K. The world\u2019s favorite cryptocurrency begins the last weekend of September at a significantly higher price: $26,972. While that’s only 2% higher than last week, it’s about 60% more valuable than at the start of the year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The market\u2019s biggest contender, Ethereum (ETH), added 4.7% over the last seven days and currently trades for $1,672, or about 40% higher than its New Year’s Day price of $1,200.<\/span><\/p>\n This week, the added boost to Ether\u2019s price likely had something to do with the fact that VanEck\u2019s Ethereum Futures Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) was officially confirmed <\/span>on Thursday<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n ETFs are regulated investment products that allow investors to gain exposure to crypto without the risks of directly purchasing and storing it. To date, not a single crypto spot ETF has been approved by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). That\u2019s because spot<\/i> ETFs are tied to the underlying assets, which are so far unregulated, but various Bitcoin and Ethereum futures<\/i> ETFs that utilize derivatives are currently trading.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On Thursday, the SEC <\/span>delayed<\/span><\/a> delivering a verdict on two pending Ethereum spot ETF applications until after Christmas: Ark Invest and VanEck. The agency also announced that it was putting four major Bitcoin spot ETFs on the backburner: <\/span>BlackRock<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Bitwise<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Invesco Galaxy Digital<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>Valkyrie<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n The only notable price movements among the thirty biggest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization this week were those of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which rallied 11.8% to $234.13, and Chainlink (LINK), which surged 14% to $7.72.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n LINK\u2019s rally was catalyzed by the news that the network has <\/span>extended cross-chain capabilities<\/span><\/a> to Coinbase\u2019s Ethereum layer-2 network <\/span>Base<\/span><\/a>. By integrating its Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) with Base, the two networks can now interact, send messages, transfer tokens, and perform other functions. Chainlink is also the <\/span>primary oracle<\/span><\/a> for the Base network.<\/span><\/p>\n It was another slow week with relatively few political or institutional developments vis-\u00e0-vis crypto regulation and adoption.<\/span><\/p>\n On Monday, Hong Kong\u2019s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) <\/span>announced new measures<\/span><\/a> to enhance transparency and security in the cryptocurrency space. The initiative comes as authorities in the semi-autonomous city-state grapple with the JPEX incident: a case of suspected fraud involving a Dubai-based crypto exchange operating in Hong Kong\u2019s turf without licensing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There are thought to be at least 2,305 victims of the incident, who collectively have been defrauded of HK$1.43 billion ($182.9 million), making JPEX one of the largest cases of financial fraud in Hong Kong history.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, Stablecoin issuer Circle launched its fiat-backed <\/span>euro-pegged EURC<\/span><\/a> stablecoin on <\/span>Stellar<\/span><\/a>, the third blockchain to host the coin after Ethereum and Avalanche.<\/span><\/p>\n Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt. With each passing week, it\u2019s getting easier to talk about crypto\u2019s relative stability compared to its performance in recent history\u2014even just a year ago. A cursory glance at some of the headlines of this column over the year reveals we\u2019ve had more slow news weeks than otherwise in 2023. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[230,225,221,227,226,228,229,60,223,224,222],"class_list":["post-166078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-brave","tag-coinbase","tag-crypto","tag-decentralised","tag-decentralized","tag-decentralized-exchange","tag-erc-20","tag-featured","tag-meme-coin","tag-robinhood","tag-solana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166078"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166081,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166078\/revisions\/166081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}In other news…<\/h2>\n
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