The Disrupt

“A Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst says there are “good” signs that a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) will soon be approved, pointing to Ark Invest filing for a Bitcoin futures ETF with an assigned ticker and Valkyrie updating its own ETF prospectus with a ticker.

Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management LLC filed for a Bitcoin (BTC) futures ETF under the ARKA ticker, while Valkyrie has assigned its BTC futures prospectus with the BTF ticker. [Further], Ark’s latest ETF filing with the SEC does not mention the word “Canada” and the application clearly outlines that the fund is seeking to invest in “exchange-traded Bitcoin futures contracts that are cash-settled in U.S. dollars.”

The analyst stated that he looks for “these type” of updated prospectus filings when determining whether an official SEC greenlight is incoming, and said that applicants often update the final details “right before” launch.

The futures ETFs filed under the ’40 Act (which Genz loves) are very much alive and likely on schedule (we think 75% chance approved in Oct).”

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“Decentraland is hosting a first-of-its-kind music festival featuring more than 80 real-world artists. Big names such as Paris Hilton, Deadmau5, Alabaster dePlume and 3LAU are involved. The four-day “Metaverse Festival” also includes VIP areas, a merchandise store for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and, oddly, portable toilets. The festival starts Oct. 21.

It is a celebration of music and culture in the virtual social world, but also a recognition that the metaverse has arrived as a viable, irresistible and profitable space for creative people, whatever their medium or background.”

See Also: Sotheby’s Takes Its NFT Experiment Into the Metaverse
See Also: Subversive Capital Files Application With SEC for a Metaverse ETF
See Also: Shatner May Have Conquered Space, but 4 South Korean ETFs Beat Him to the Metaverse

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“With regulatory rumblings in Washington growing louder, Uniswap has hired Hari Sevugan to help shape public perception. Sevugan, a former Washington operative who has held senior staff positions for multiple high-profile statesmen, will manage public-facing communications for Uniswap Labs, including ‘helping the company tell its story to existing users and new audiences and managing media affairs.’

Crypto is opaque and intimidating to many outside of it. I want to help more people connect to it by making it more relatable and understandable. One of the fundamental challenges, by virtue of what makes headlines, is that crypto is seen only through the lens of value, and not values.”

See Also: Coinbase Proposes US Create New Regulator to Oversee Crypto
See Also: Meet the DeFi Delegate Knocking on the Doors of Congress

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“The Pay Me in Bitcoin option, introduced Thursday, allows users to deposit their salaries directly to their Strike accounts and choose the amount that is automatically swapped and credited to their bitcoin balance.

Strike began experimenting with the feature last year when National Football League player Russell Okung used Strike to split his $13 million salary 50-50 between bitcoin and fiat. Several other athletes have since followed in his footsteps. Now the service has been made widely available to Strike’s U.S. customers.

The expanded feature comes less than a month after Coinbase, the leading U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it will let users deposit all or part of their paychecks in crypto or dollars. However, unlike Coinbase, which lists a smorgasbord of digital assets for trading, Strike is a staunchly bitcoin-focused shop.”

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“Bitcoin is showing signs of exhaustion after the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s September meeting, released late Wednesday, flagged inflation concerns and revealed growing support for a faster unwinding of stimulus.

The Fed minutes carried fewer references to inflation being transitory and showed policymakers are worried that price pressures might remain high for longer than previously assumed.

Bitcoin is up 30% this month, though, buoyed by increased expectations that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will soon approve a futures-based bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). The SEC is likely to approve at least four ETFs this month, according to Bloomberg. Long-term sentiment remains bullish.”

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“Any CBDC must “do no harm” to central banks’ ability to maintain monetary and financial stability, the finance officials of the seven countries (U.K, U.S, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan) said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

CBDCs should also co-exist with other conventional means of payment such as cash to promote a competitive environment and be a catalyst for digital economy innovation in conjunction with existing and future payment methods.”

See Also: Putin Says Crypto Can’t Yet Replace Dollar in Settling Oil Trades: Report

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“North American addresses received $750 billion in crypto between July 2020 and June 2021, or 18.4% of global transactions. Central, Northern and Western Europe received $1 trillion during that time period, accounting for 25% of global volume. Monthly transaction volume in North America grew by over 1,000% between July 2020 and this past May, from $14.4 billion to $164 billion.

Chainalysis attributed the growth to DeFi, which represented 37% of total transactions in North America. The region’s top exchange during that time period was decentralized trading platform Uniswap, followed by centralized exchange Coinbase and decentralized dYdX.

East Asia’s share of global crypto transaction volume started dropping in April 2020, long before this year’s crackdown on the industry by Chinese authorities. Starting April 2019, East Asia accounted for the lion’s share of crypto transactions globally, until June 2020, when it was overtaken by Central, Northern and Western Europe, as well as by North America.

China has been moving towards an outright crypto ban in favor of its own solutions.”

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“MintGreen, a Canadian cleantech cryptocurrency miner, is working with Lonsdale Energy Corp. to supply heat to the city of North Vancouver from bitcoin mining. The heat source will be introduced in 2022 and will prevent 20,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas per megawatt from entering the atmosphere compared with natural gas.

MintGreen’s proprietary “Digital Boilers” recover 96% of the electricity used for bitcoin mining as heat that is then used to supply communities and for industrial processes. The company uses an “immersion” technology that captures the heat generated in mining and goes to hot water utilities. The utility working with MintGreen serves about 100 buildings.”