On May 6th, most of the cryptoeconomy’s top coins saw acute spikes on the day as recent institutional advancements from major firms like Fidelity and eTrade and reporting around possible ether (ETH) futures in the U.S. have seemingly sparked another surge of optimism — and thus buy pressure — in crypto markets.
Ether led the charge after CoinDesk broke an early morning report wherein an anonymous source within the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had said the regulators were willing to greenlight a reputable ether futures offering. “[W]e we can get comfortable with an ether derivative being under our jurisdiction,” the insider commented.
Critics of the report suggested it was much ado about nothing, arguing that it was still likely to be some time before any ether futures product launched in America. But investors buzzed regardless and poured into ether throughout the evening, causing the price of the Ethereum network’s “gas” to rise 11 percent to as high as $180 USD for a time.
Spike in Crypto Prices
And ether’s spike soon spread around to other top coins.
The bitcoin (BTC) price followed suit, gaining around $250 in value and then hovering around the $5,900 mark as May 7th began. XRP, stellar lumens (XLM), and bitcoin cash (BCH) were all up around three percent on the day, to $0.301, $0.0973 and $290.60 respectively.
Bigger gainers were Litecoin ($76.11), EOS ($4.90), and Cardano’s ADA ($0.0668), all of which gained approximately five percent intraday.
The outliers in the cryptoeconomy’s big-cap projects for the day were Binance’s exchange token, BNB, which sunk one percent to $21.52, as well as the tether (USDT) stablecoin, which dropped less than one percent to hit $0.974.
For its part, tether has become embroiled in fresh scandal, as the office of the Attorney General of New York has accused Bitfinex of borrowing from tether’s cash reserves to help hide $850 million in funds that were seized from the exchange by law enforcement in 2018.
Yet that scandal’s drama apparently hasn’t dampered the rising optimism that’s picked up around the steady flow of positive headlines hitting the cryptoeconomy as of late.
Starting to Feel a Lot Like Bullish?
Things look on the up and up particularly for the cryptocurrency ecosystem’s two top dogs, bitcoin and ether.
On the technical front, builders in both projects are taking hearty steps toward the future. A Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) draft with “spending rules based on Taproot, Schnorr signatures, and Merkle branches” has just been created by Pieter Wuille. And the code specifications for the first phase of Ethereum’s proof-of-stake (PoS) transition could be done as early as next month.
Taproot and Schnorr BIP draft proposal is out today, as always @pwuille delivers amazing work, congratulations. https://t.co/M3Vhhgow1n
If you don't understand these technologies yet, start here for a better understanding of Schnorr & Taproot! https://t.co/3zQCdA5Y5v pic.twitter.com/3ygDoCDRw0
— Gustavo J. Flores E. (@gustavojfe) May 6, 2019
On the adoption front, things seem to be picking up steam as well.
Online stock broker powerhouse eTrade is reportedly getting ready to offer bitcoin and ether trading services. Fidelity, which presently administrates around $7.5 trillion worth of assets, is also preparing to facilitate bitcoin trading for institutions.
Accordingly, the firm’s crypto arm, Fidelity Digital Assets, could eventually prove to be a gamechanger in conjunction with kindred platforms like Bakkt and ErisX when it comes to taking bitcoin and ether mainstream — not only in the U.S. but in the international arena, too.
If ever approved, an ether futures offering in the U.S. would only spark further institutional interest in the crypto space. Whether such an approval would happen any time soon remains to be seen. But its clear through the fledgling rise of platforms like the aforementioned Bakkt and ErisX that major institutional participation in crypto and crypto derivatives is seemingly only getting started.
In the mean time, cryptoverse stakeholders will continue to eye the bitcoin and ether prices as they reach the round $6,000 and $200 marks respectively.
