June 20, 2024

Crypto assets enjoyed a rally during the European morning, lifting bitcoin around 1.5% over 24 hours to $66,300 and ether 2% to $3,600. The broader digital asset market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) has climbed about 1%, with Avalanche's AVAX the biggest gainer at just under 3.9%. XRP has risen by 1.5%, while Solana's SOL gained 1.3%.SOL, as the closest thing to an ether competitor in the altcoin market, may be experiencing downside as traders anticipate the listing of spot ETH ETFs in the U.S., an event thought likely sometime in the next few months. 

The VanEck Bitcoin ETF (VBTC) started trading on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). This is the first exchange-traded fund to list on the ASX, the country's largest stock exchange. VBTC rose 1% from its opening price to end the day at A$20.06 ($13.4) after trading 99,791 shares. The ETF is a feeder fund that provides exposure to bitcoin by investing in the company's Bitcoin Trust (HODL), a U.S. ETF listed on Cboe. At the start of this month, the first Australian spot bitcoin ETF, Monochrome Asset Management’s IBTC, debuted on Cboe Australia, a smaller rival to ASX. 

Tokens said to be using AI technology have surged as much as 35% in the last 24 hours. Fetch.ai’s FET, SingularityNET’s AGIX and Ocean Protocol’s OCEAN led the advance while the sector added 15% on average. The growth followed gains in chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA)'s stock, which has risen 5% since Monday, making it the most valuable company in the world. "AI as a sector is hot in both traditional markets and crypto,” Edward Wilson, an analyst at Nansen.ai told CoinDesk. “It should come as no surprise that on the back of Nvidia becoming the world's most valuable company AI tokens are rallying.”

The expected listing of spot ether ETFs in the U.S. appears to be spurring outflows from other altcoins into ETH. The ratio between SOL and ETH's dollar-denominated prices has fallen nearly 35% on Binance in the last month.

"SOL/ETH [is] rolling over," analyst Josh Olszewicz said on X, noting key bearish developments on the technical chart like the penetration of the Ichimoku cloud support.

While the pattern of the last month has put the bears in control, with further losses to be expected, the pair may see temporary recovery rallies should there be outflows from the Grayscale Ethereum Trust, according to Olzewicz.

Note that in the month following the debut of spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S., the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF saw $6.5 billion in outflows, offsetting substantial inflows into the other funds. Following the expected debut of spot ETFs in July, a similar dynamic might be seen in the ether market, keeping ETH gains in check.

- Omkar Godbole