ROLLUP: ETH ETF Approved | Crypto Politics | Uniswap Wells Notice | Airdrop Reset?

Bankless Nation.

It is the fourth week

of May in the year of our Lord. 2024. And this is an absolutely historic week on the Bankless weekly roll up.

I think this might be one of the winningest weeks that I've ever seen in crypto.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm trying I'm trying to think of another week that stands out in the way that this week stands out. And I would definitely say it's the most winning week we've had politically. Maybe the most winning week in America since I've been in crypto. Um

Maybe the most winning week ever. I think

I think it's the most winning week ever. Because, like, we're not just talking about the ETH ETF, but we're talking about an entire political 180 about its stance towards the entire industry. And that is showing up like first and foremost in the price of ETH because of the ETH ETF. But this impacts the entire industry.

I gotta tell you, man, it feels real good. After the last real

Good.

two years we've had two and a half years we've had of all of the the politics. Bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. Like just like pressing down against us and the US government to actually clock in some wins. Well, one thing we should say before we get into this roll up. Okay. So for for bank listen listeners, you guys have an advantage of living in a future world where you actually know the outcome of the Ethereum ETF approval or denial.

Yeah.

If it was somehow denied, this is aging so poorly

So the way David and I record weekly roll-ups is we record them the day before. So right now it's like we should clock in our time. It's uh Thursday, May 23rd at twelve forty ES Eastern time. Eastern time. Okay. And as of now, we don't know for sure whether the Eth Ethereum ETF will be approved or not. Remember, the deadline is today. The deadline is Thursday, the 23rd, at the time that we're recording. So we don't know as we're jumping into this. You know, but we don't know. And I think, David, we just gotta, for the sake of this episode, we just gotta assume approval and maybe just tell the story of this one 180 where it seems like the odds of approval are uh approaching certainty here. Um, one thing I'll also say is if it is approved, there's another episode already waiting for you. Yeah, and you're bank fast with

than this one. Yeah.

Yeah, and it's probably the episode hopefully where we're celebrating the approval of the Ethereum ETF. So go go check out your podcast feed to get that or on YouTube or wherever you listen.

But nonetheless, other things also happened in crypto. So, in addition to the ETH ETF approval, that we are probably going to talk about how the approval swung in our favor at the 11th hour. There's also the political changing winds in our favor as well. And then also a bunch of airdrops, perhaps on the back of just like being extremely bullish. ETH edition, big, big airdrops coming out this week that are being teased by the protocols themselves. Meanwhile, we learn about what was inside the Uniswap Wells notice. And then also Bankless unleashes phase two of our on chain collectibles. So all of this and more coming up in the weekly rollup. But first, a message from our friends and sponsors over at

Just like the ETH price this week, I think.

Just just like the E.

We gotta start with Bitcoin though. Let's g let's give the king his due. Alright, Bitcoin is the number one crypto asset. So, David, let's look at the Kraken charts and tell us where we are on the week. Because Bitcoin had a not a bad week.

A green week. Yeah. Started the week 65,800. And then it went up 3% this week to where it is now at 68,000. Hit 71,000 at the top, but has come down since, hitting 71. On the backs of the ETH ETF news, that it was very likely going to be approved. Bitcoin hit 71,000, came back down to 68,100 where we are now. Anyways, moving on to ETH price. Starting the week at two, the low, low price of $2,950.

Under three we started this week under three

Under $10,000. Yeah. So silly. ETH really pushing new lows on the price at the start of this week. Up 28%

on

the week.

Woo!

Uh currently at $3,800, hitting uh $3,900 above $3,900 this morning. Uh definitely some some very strong volatility in the ETH price this week. 28%. So Bitcoin up 3%. Nice drop, Bitcoin. ETH up 28% on the week.

David, look at the size of this candle. This was this happened what May 20th? Was that the big run?

May 20th, yeah.

Uh and we're gonna talk later in the episode about the tweet that really started this God candle. And um I think we want to get to maybe the size of this god candle in a second, but there's another chart we should look at, which is uh the good old Ethereum trust. You remember that thing? Ether

Things about to go away. ETHE, the grayscale ETH E discount, uh, was trading at a 24% discount. So you could buy Ether at 24% off because people just didn't want to hold the grayscale ETHE discount by that much. It is now down. That discount has reduced down to 7%. So actually, there's still like a somewhat

from like negative,

From negative negative 24 to negative seven. So there's still in the grayscale ETH E trust, there's still a seven percent discount at the time of recording. So you can still, as of this moment, buy ETH 7%.

but they're gonna hear it tomorrow. Like

It's gonna be big disapproval

stale. We've also just seen some insane volume in the grayscale ETH E trust. Uh you just like three times more volume on a daily basis than we've seen ever before. Um

did you get in on some of this, David? Did you get in this uh in your 401k? Do you have any of those retirement accounts or anything?

I I don't have a 401k.

This is this has been a bleeding goodbye for a very long time. For sure, for sure. And uh we mentioned it a few times, more than a few times, on the on the roll up. So hopefully some bankless listeners benefited from um this ARB opportunity here. Which I guess

Still is, which there's

Yeah, there still is. As of as of recording. And we're just assuming this thing gets approved. So let's let's

a if the if just reminder, if the Ether ETF does get approved, which the grayscale will be one of them, the ether trust gets converted into an ETF and that premium just zips, mil poof, gone, and now it's trades at par.

Yeah. So let's get back to that God candle. Um, how big was it?

I'm going to start with the ETH market cap. Started the week at $370 billion. It is now $460 billion. So in seven days, Ethereum added $90 billion to its market cap. That is one and one quarters Solana added to the Ethereum market cap in seven days. On Monday, this Monday, when we got the news that there was some uh a change of the winds in the political establishment about the ETH ETF approval, Ethereum got its largest candle ever.

And I'm not talking about green candle, like candle, red or green, the largest candle ever. Yes. A daily candle, 24 hour candle of $595. That is the most that the ETH price has ever moved in a daily basis.

I mean, we set this up in our live stream earlier this week on on I think Monday, where we were talking about this news just came in, but before this, all right. So at the at the bottom of the the candle, ETH was in some pretty negative narrative territory. And people were not feeling good about Ethereum, that this bull cycle, and a lot of people had not had priced out the idea that an Ethereum ETF was even possible. So this is the market just suddenly realizing uh oh.

We're offsides.

We're underweight. We gotta get back in.

Yeah. I mean, granted, they knew things changed. Like there was previous new information.

There's new information. So like you can debate about whether that whether that means offsize or not. There's some ETH Stalwars out there that says like this was this was always a possibility that the market was totally like underserving. Yeah. Um, but yes, nonetheless, there's like and I still actually think that there's quite a bit of like offsizeness in the crypto markets in this.

But this is what another thing that's nice about this candle is it's fundamentals. It's very clearly it's not just like a a day of trading or like, you know, something some whales buying. This is clearly fundamentals getting priced in.

Totally. Um, ether price is actually still 28% below all-time highs. Um, and so there's like right now, there's a big conversation. It's like, okay, like, but what will the ETH ETF approval actually do to the ETH price? Will it will it underperform in terms of its impact versus Bitcoin because there's just not as much demand for the ETH ETF than there was in comparison to Bitcoin? Will it overperform versus Bitcoin because of the price sensitivity that Ether has? And actually, as a tech platform like uh asset, there's actually more demand relative to its market cap versus Bitcoin. Right now, that that's a conversation that's currently unfolding.

Uh let's talk about that. So all-time high was what what 4815 something, 4,800 territory. And I'm looking at the cracking charts here. The last time we hit that was November uh 2021.

Yeah.

I had forgotten that that was in 2021. So what what was what was it like in Ethereum at that time? What was it like in crypto at that time? A much different market than the all time high we might hit now. Certainly nothing even close to an ETF.

Well, first and foremost, at that moment in time, we had 0% interest rates in November of 2021. So that helped that that face of the market was actually dominated by the Sol Luna AVAX trade. Um November 2022 uh one was Sol Luna AVAX territory. Uh Luna, of course, would then pop um just two months later, three months later. Um uh that was really the actual the top of the market. Um I guess.

This just feels like a much stronger foundation as we're approaching this new all time high than we had in a November 2021. So that's an interesting comp for you. Uh, shall we talk about the ratio for a minute?

Yeah, ratio. Uh start of the week pretty like pretty piss poor at 0.0458, which is uh a three year low for the ratio.

Yeah.