Bitcoin sinks to 2025 lows
The crypto market slid under the $3 trillion threshold on Wednesday, as BTC slipped below $83K.
There’s never a dull moment on the blockchain. Here’s what you need to know this week:
Bitcoin dipped to 2025 lows below $83K. Also, the SEC is set to abandon actions against several crypto firms.
Could Litecoin be the next crypto ETF? A refresher on LTC, which some analysts think has the best odds for an ETF approval from the SEC.
A rising number of “non-crypto companies” are building on Ethereum. Plus, more key stats and figures from around the cryptoverse.
MARKET BYTES
Bitcoin sinks to 2025 lows amid market uncertainty
Crypto prices took a sizable hit this week, with BTC sliding below $83,000 on Wednesday — its lowest price since November. A wide range of other tokens, including Ether, XRP, and Solana were also down as the crypto’s total market cap lost around 5% on Wednesday, falling below the $3 trillion mark.
What’s spooking traders? One possible factor is the fallout from the largest crypto hack of all time, in which around $1.5 billion in ETH was lost in an attack on the Dubai-based Bybit exchange last Friday. Other potential triggers noted by analysts include the cooling market for memecoins, inflation fears, and broader uncertainties around the Trump administration's latest tariff announcements.
As Bloomberg put it, “Tumbling crypto prices mirror a broader retreat from risky assets that gained momentum late last week when a string of disappointing economic reports pushed the Nasdaq 100 to what is now its worst four-day drop since September.”
Here are three more market stories you should know about…
SEC set to drop actions against Coinbase and other crypto firms
In a major shift, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is set to drop a lawsuit it was pursuing against Coinbase, and stop investigations into Robinhood’s crypto arm, NFT marketplace OpenSea, and decentralized exchange Uniswap.
The moves were celebrated by the crypto industry as a much-needed reversal of the “regulation by enforcement” policy pursued by the SEC under the Biden administration — as opposed to clear “rules of the road” that the industry has long sought.
“Caving to their demands could have killed the crypto industry in America,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on X. “If we had caved, it would have dramatically limited the scope of which crypto assets were allowed in the US, and pushed the industry further offshore, into the shadows.”
“I commend the new leadership that is already in place for working to right this wrong,” Armstrong wrote.
New rules… A trade association representing major crypto and Wall Street firms, including Coinbase, met with the SEC’s new crypto task force on Friday to discuss a variety of potential crypto-policy proposals, including the expanding of eligibility requirements for crypto ETFs to a wider range of tokens.
BTC ETFs shed nearly $1 billion as investors pull back
A little over a year ago, bitcoin exchange-traded funds debuted to blockbuster success, and helped spark crypto’s latest bull cycle. But as volatility has risen in recent weeks, U.S. spot BTC ETFs have seen around $956 million in outflows so far in February, marking “the worst month on record for the category,” according to Bloomberg.
Surprisingly, investment products for several smaller tokens including Solana, Ether, and XRP saw inflows, according to CoinShares’ latest report. Specifically, XRP investment products (which don’t trade in the U.S.) have now seen $819 million in inflows since mid-November, “reflecting investor hopes that the SEC will drop its lawsuit” against the token.
Whale street… In other Wall Street news, Citadel Securities, the market-making firm that accounts for around 35% of all U.S. stock trading volume, is reportedly planning to become a liquidity provider for crypto markets. “Citadel's entry would mark a watershed moment for institutional crypto participation,” said Decrypt.
Strategy buys $2 billion more BTC
Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) purchased another 20,356 BTC for nearly $2 billion according to an SEC filing, bringing its total holdings to around $47 billion — or around 2.5% of BTC’s total supply of 21 million tokens.
Meanwhile, Japanese firm Metaplanet — which has plans to buy 21,000 BTC by 2026 — purchased 68.59 BTC for about $6.6 million. The company now holds 2,100 BTC, or around 0.01% of the total supply.
What companies hold the most BTC? Strategy has the most with 478,740 BTC, followed by Mara Holdings (45,221 BTC) and Riot Platforms (18,211 BTC).
SPOT LITE
Why Litecoin could be the next token to get a spot ETF
In recent months, as a more crypto-friendly administration has taken hold in Washington, a slew of applications for spot crypto ETFs that would go beyond the current bitcoin and Ether products have emerged.
The SEC is currently considering applications for spot ETFs for tokens including XRP, Hedera (HBAR), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), with new proposals seemingly surfacing almost every week: On Tuesday, Grayscale submitted paperwork to create an ETF that would hold Polkadot (DOT).
But according to Bloomberg’s main ETF analysts, one token has the edge as the most likely to gain approval in 2025: Litecoin (LTC), the sixteenth-largest token by market capitalization.
What is Litecoin, and what are analysts saying about its odds of approval? Here’s what you need to know…
Okay, so what is Litecoin?
Litecoin — which was founded in 2011 — was designed by Charlie Lee, a former Google and Coinbase software engineer. It was adapted from Bitcoin’s code, and like BTC, uses a “proof of work” consensus mechanism. With a maximum supply of 84 million LTC, new coins are gradually released through mining, and as of late 2023, more than 73 million LTC have already been mined.
LTC’s blockchain was designed for faster and cheaper transactions — it generates new blocks every 2.5 minutes, as opposed to around 10 minutes for BTC. “The objective was to make a peer-to-peer cash system cheaper than the oldest and most well-known digital currency: a ‘silver’ to Bitcoin's ‘digital gold,’” as Decrypt put it.
In recent months, activity on Litecoin’s blockchain has surged, hitting nearly $10 billion of daily transaction volume last week, up from around $2.5 billion in August. On Wednesday morning, LTC was trading around $127, compared to an all-time high above $400 in 2021.
What have analysts said about its ETF odds?
There is a 90% chance of Litecoin receiving ETF approval this year, according to Bloomberg ETF analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart, placing it ahead of the odds for DOGE (75%), SOL (70%) and XRP (65%) ETFs.
LTC’s main advantage comes from its similarity to the already–ETF–approved BTC, including its current status as a commodity.
What is the deadline for the SEC to make a decision?
The SEC has a final deadline of Oct. 2, but it's possible that the agency will decide earlier. One LTC ETF application, from a firm called Canary Capital, has already appeared in the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) system, which is a key step before the launch of a fund.
Other LTC ETF applicants include Grayscale and CoinShares.
How much demand might there be for Litecoin ETFs?
It’s hard to say, but given that about 6% of BTC’s market cap and 3% of ETH’s market cap are invested in ETFs, Litecoin funds could see between $290 and $580 million in inflows if they see similar ratios.
“Even if demand is comparatively low, it could still see some demand,” said Bloomberg’s Seyffart. “Just because the success won’t be as crazy as the bitcoin or even the ethereum ETFs doesn’t mean that it can’t be successful.”
NUMBERS TO KNOW
$376.7 million
Record yearly revenue that bitcoin mining firm Riot Platforms booked in 2024, the company reported on Monday. The firm’s 34% year-over-year revenue increase was attributed to the growth of its mining operations, despite surging costs. As The Block notes, “the average cost for Riot to mine each bitcoin … climbed to $32,216 in 2024, up from $3,831 in 2023.”
$5,482
The average gains made by crypto investors in 2024, according to data from more than 500,000 investors via tax software platform CoinLedger — up more than 500% compared to the average gain of $877 investors saw in 2023.
50+
Number of “non-crypto companies” that are currently building on Ethereum, according to a new report from Galaxy. The list includes firms ranging from fashion brands like Gucci and Burberry to banking giants like Citi and BNY Mellon. The top use case is NFTs, followed by the tokenization of real-world assets like dollars, money market funds, and government bonds.
TOKEN TRIVIA
What is the name of Ethereum’s next upgrade?
A
Pectra
B
Sepolia
C
Shapella
D
Dencun
Find the answer below.
Trivia Answer
A
Pectra
