Ethereum Archives | Protos https://protos.com/tag/ethereum/ Informed crypto news Tue, 12 Nov 2024 13:32:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.6 https://protos-media.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/30110137/cropped-protos-favicon-32x32.png Ethereum Archives | Protos https://protos.com/tag/ethereum/ 32 32 Dev loses $27M in Ethereum restaking giant Renzo, offers 10% bounty https://protos.com/dev-loses-27m-in-ethereum-restaking-giant-renzo-offers-10-bounty/ Tue, 12 Nov 2024 12:49:38 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=79620 A careless dev burned $25 million in ezETH liquid restaking tokens and is offering a 10% bounty to incentivize recovery from Renzo devs.

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A crypto developer is pleading for help and offering a bounty worth millions after accidentally sending $25 million of Renzo tokens to the wrong Ethereum address.

The dev sent 7,912 ezETH, a type of liquid restaking token worth over $3,400 apiece, to what is known as a Safe Module instead of a Safe. With funds now frozen, the developer is offering 10% — a $2.5 million reward — to anyone who can retrieve his funds.

The tokens went to an Ethereum contract address labeled ‘CoboSafeAccount.’ Despite having keys to that wallet, the dev’s particular token type and a bug in ERC-20 transaction handling prohibit recovery. That CoboSafeAccount now holds about $27 million in Renzo Restaked ETH (ezETH) — slightly higher than his initial deposit due to Monday’s rally in the price of ether (ETH).

Renzo is a liquid restaking protocol that interoperates with EigenLayer, a layer 2 on Ethereum. It allows users to gain access to Ethereum’s proof-of-stake yield by simply owning ezETH rather than actually staking ETH as a solo staker.

Renzo currently boasts $1.6 billion in total restaking value on its platform.

A bug in ERC-20 transaction handling?

A hacker who goes by “Dexaran” commented on the $27 million in frozen ezETH, saying the problem is a security issue with ERC-20 contracts that Ethereum developers have failed to fix since 2017. Specifically, Dexaran says ERC-20 transfer functions lack proper handling protocols.

It also lacks failsafe defaults and error-handling protocols that would have prevented errors like the one committed by the CoboSafeAccount owner.

Dexaran says he developed the ERC-223 standard, which adds allegedly superior transaction handling. He also engaged with Ethereum developers about ERC-223 with limited success.

The CoboSafeAccount owner confirmed that the contract had no transfer function.

Read more: Ethereum centralization is becoming a serious problem

Will a bounty bring Renzo to the rescue?

At this point, according to many comments on X, Renzo’s own developers are probably the only way for the beleaguered dev to recover his $27 million. Renzo, as owner of the ezETH contract, could update the contract to allow funds to be retrieved. However, that would require gaining the cooperation of devs responsible for a billion-dollar protocol.

Some commenters suggested offering Renzo the bounty while others offered to negotiate with Renzo or recommended putting social pressure on the team.

Some also suggested that the CoboSafeAccount owner could add himself as a delegate and use execTransaction to get the funds out if he controls the contract. That method does not yet seem successful.

The resolution of the issue is still pending. Renzo might decide to update their contract to give this developer a workaround to the bug in ERC-20 transaction handling. However, it is equally likely that the funds will be stuck forever.

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Ethereum devs publish EIP-7809 proposal for native tokens https://protos.com/ethereum-devs-publish-eip-7809-proposal-for-native-tokens/ Mon, 11 Nov 2024 16:47:33 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=79600 Ethereum developer Paul Berg published a proposal that he says will improve user experience and make financial products easier to implement.

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Ethereum developer Paul Berg published a proposal for multiple native tokens on Ethereum that he says will improve user experience when transferring tokens, make native financial products easier to implement, and improve the potential for innovation in Ethereum Layer 2 applications.

Called EIP-7809, the proposal will add a backward-compatible extension to the EVM that will allow fungible tokens to operate with “native-like” properties if it passes Ethereum’s process for approving new proposals.

Ether (ETH) already functions as Ethereum’s native token. Nearly every other Ethereum-based token was built on top of the network without including most of the same “native” qualities that ETH has.

This limits functions such as direct token transfers using opcodes and transferring multiple tokens in a single contract call. EIP-7809 introduces four new opcodes:

  • MINT & BURN, which allows token supply management through (obviously) minting and burning tokens
  • BALANCEOF for checking token balances
  • NTCALL for token transfers that require calling a contract
  • NTCREATE for creating a contract that includes upfront token deposits

The new EIP also proposes replacing the “value” field with “(token_id, token_amount)” pairs. This new variable will be bundled with “transferred_tokens_length” in the “native_tokens_list” element.

Berg says this proposal arose from work on the now-discontinued Sablier Mainnet. The mainnet would have provided an infrastructure for token distribution. Sablier decided to launch on the L2 platform Morph instead.

One critic on EIP-7809’s GitHub page said parts of the proposal were redundant due to similarities with previous proposals. EIP-223 already proposes a standard that “allows payloads to be attached to transactions using the bytes calldata data parameter, which can encode a second function call in the destination address, similar to how msg.data does in an ether transaction.”

EIP-223’s calldata_data parameter sounded similar to the NTCALL opcode.

Read more: Did Vitalik Buterin’s girlfriend stall Ethereum development?

EIP-1155 describes another proposed method for transferring multiple tokens in a single call. EIP-1363 describes a method for executing a contract after a token transfer without having to pay a gas fee twice.

Similarities to functions that are already available on the Solana blockchain were duly noted. Solana introduced the Token Program and Token Extensions to develop a common implementation for viewing and managing Solana-based tokens.

This proposal might not affect the actual supply of ETH unless the developers decide to use the MINT & BURN opcode to adjust it. MINT & BURN likely uses the proposal’s “token_id,” or unique smart contract address.

One commenter suggested changing ETH’s token ID to 0xeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, a value they said was already used by several decentralized exchanges.

If Berg’s EIP-7809 proposal passes, ETH may soon become one of many native or “native-like” tokens on Ethereum. It could help simplify token supply management, checking token balances, and token transfers that have to interact with a contract.

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Poloniex exit leaves Ethereum stUSDT nearly abandoned https://protos.com/poloniex-exit-leaves-ethereum-stusdt-nearly-abandoned/ Thu, 24 Oct 2024 17:08:40 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=78297 Poloniex has withdrawn from Staked USDT (stUSDT) on Ethereum, vastly dropping the utilization of the protocol.

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Staked USDT (stUSDT), a protocol that supposedly invests in US Treasury securities to pay yields to users who ‘stake’ their tether tokens, has seen its utilization on Ethereum collapse as Justin Sun-owned Poloniex has exited its position, according to onchain data. 

Staked USDT is a token that has historically been used by entities and wallets closely connected to Sun, representing a majority of all tethers in reserves at HTX, a cryptocurrency exchange he advises.

Additionally, on Ethereum, huge portions of this token were controlled by 0x176F3DAb24a159341c0509bB36B833E7fdd0a132, an address that was previously tagged as “Justin Sun 4” on Etherscan but is now tagged as “Poloniex 9.”

Read more: WBTC supply contracts this month following Justin Sun custody drama

Poloniex’s abject refusal to complete a proof-of-reserves, despite Sun’s repeated promises and insistence on its importance, makes it more challenging to determine if this address is more under the control of Poloniex or Sun, insofar as there is a difference.

At times, this address controlled as much as 96% of the total supply of stUSDT on Ethereum. 

However, approximately three months ago, the exchange appeared to have requested a withdrawal of approximately $30 million worth of the token. This was followed two days ago by the withdrawal of approximately $11 million worth, and another $9.4 million today. 

These withdrawals have left the token nearly abandoned on Ethereum, with the largest remaining holder, 0x9FCc67D7DB763787BB1c7f3bC7f34d3C548c19Fe, having only $1.7 million worth of this token — approximately 90% of the total supply. 

The largest token holder on Tron, TDToUxX8sH4z6moQpK3ZLAN24eupu2ivA4, an HTX address, still holds a much larger $195 million, representing approximately 85% of the supply on Tron.

Protos has reached out to Poloniex to confirm it controls this address, but at press time had received no response.

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WBTC supply contracts this month following Justin Sun custody drama https://protos.com/wbtc-supply-contracts-this-month-following-justin-sun-custody-drama/ Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:59:02 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=78155 WBTC announced it will transition the custody of bitcoin for the token from BitGo to a joint venture between BitGo, BiT Global, and Sun.

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Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), a popular ERC-20 wrapped version of bitcoin that also has versions on other chains, has seen its supply contract slightly since Justin Sun’s involvement was announced.

A Dune analytics dashboard created by 21.co that tracks the supply of WBTC on Ethereum suggests that the supply of WBTC on Ethereum has contracted by 3.7% over the last month.

The largest burns in the last month seem to have come from Coinlist, FalconX, and Abra.

Dune analytics dashboard, courtesy of 21.co.

Justin Sun’s role

WBTC has attracted significantly greater attention since it announced that it would be transitioning the custody of bitcoin for the token from BitGo to a joint venture between BitGo, BiT Global, and Sun.

BiT Global directors include Yiying Jiang, an executive who has previously worked with Sun on ventures related to BitTorrent, Poloniex, Huobi, TRON, and TrueUSD.

This decision initially led MakerDAO to limit the ability for new Dai, its native token, to be issued by borrowing against WBTC, though this decision was subsequently reversed

Read more: Launch of cbBTC, WBTC competitor, sparks Justin Sun hypocrisy

New competitors

Other firms have taken advantage of this stumble to promote alternative products or changes to existing products.

Threshold Network, which is behind tBTC, at one point, proposed a merger with WBTC — something that was unlikely to ever occur

Coinbase launched Coinbase Wrapped BTC (cbBTC), a coin that attracted the ire of Sun for its lack of proof of reserves.

Kraken has taken the opportunity to launch its own wrapped Bitcoin token, kBTC, however, none of these tokens have yet seen significant adoption compared to WBTC.

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Five days of $0 inflows to spot ether ETFs since July launch https://protos.com/five-days-of-0-inflows-to-spot-ether-etfs-since-july-launch/ Fri, 11 Oct 2024 10:36:20 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=77181 Capital inflows since the US listing of spot ether ETFs are actually negative and billions short of their bitcoin counterparts.

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Since spot ether Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) began trading on US securities exchanges, five days have seen precisely $0 of Ethereum capital inflows. Even worse, since July 23, 2024, owners of the nine spot ether ETFs have actually withdrawn money from those products.

Incredibly, because trusts and other investors seeded over $10 billion worth of spot ether into the ETFs prior to their debut on US exchanges, the tally of post-launch trading activity is negative $556 million.

‘Inflows’ is a term used to describe the net US dollar flow into spot ether ETFs. It excludes all other Ethereum-related purchases and sales such as futures, options, derivatives, or spot ether itself.

Investors track ETF inflows as a way to measure how much effect ETFs are having on Ethereum’s market capitalization independent of other variables. In this case, the answer is simple: Ether ETFs have not helped.

The tally of post-launch trading activity is negative $556 million.

Ether inflows crash, billions behind bitcoin ETFs

Although US spot ether ETFs have been net negative since inception, spot bitcoin ETFs as an investment vehicle have been indisputably beneficial for bitcoin inflows. Although bitcoin holders might choose to sell other products and buy spot ETFs — a roundtrip of non-economic purpose — there is significant evidence that ETFs are truly contributing to bitcoin’s market capitalization.

Specifically, since spot bitcoin ETFs began trading on US exchanges on January 11, 2024, inflows have exceeded $18.7 billion. That compares starkly with spot ether ETF outflows of -$556 million.

The disappointment is even more bitter after a promising start. On their opening day, spot ether ETFs bested the debut of spot bitcoin ETFs. Soon, however, Ethereum gave up its initial lead.

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Spot ether ETF flows were $0 yesterday, negative $548 million since launch https://protos.com/spot-ether-etf-flows-were-0-yesterday-negative-548-million-since-launch/ Tue, 08 Oct 2024 17:02:02 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=76882 On Monday, net inflows into ether via nine spot ETFs listed on US exchanges posted a disappointing $0 for an entire day.

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Institutional ethereum investment via ETFs reached a historic — and dismal — milestone yesterday when for an entire day on Wall Street, zero net new US dollars flowed into spot ether ETFs.

Known as ‘daily total net flow’ or simply ‘flows’ in crypto parlance, this metric sums the total amount of money invested into spot ether ETFs (inflows) against the total amount of money withdrawn (outflows) on a daily basis.

The intention of the metric is to communicate how much effect the spot ether ETFs — distinct from other investment vehicles like spot or derivative purchases — contribute to ether’s price on a day-to-day basis.

Calculations are typically in US dollars and take into account all purchase and sale transactions across the nine spot ether ETFs listed on US stock exchanges by sponsors BlackRock, Fidelity, Bitwise, 21Shares, Franklin, Invesco/Galaxy, VanEck, and Grayscale’s two spot ETFs.

Ether ETF flows have disappointed everyone

Monday’s figure of $0 contrasts starkly with predictions from bullish investors who heralded spot ether ETFs as the advent of institutional adoption. Market predictions included all-time highs of up to $15,000 per ETH. Today, ETH is trading around $2,400 — half of its all-time high.

In the first quarter following the launch of bitcoin’s spot ETFs, bitcoin enjoyed over $12 billion of inflows. Ether, disappointingly, has actually posted net outflows since its spot ETFs debuted.

Read more: Ethereum beats bitcoin first-day spot ETF inflows

Indeed, because Wall Street entities had seeded the nine spot ether ETFs with $10.2 billion of capital for their debut — most of which came from Grayscale’s ether trust — there was some money available to withdraw from these funds.

Taking that opportunity, investors have withdrawn capital from spot ether ETFs on a net basis since their US listings. Specifically, spot ether ETFs have shed $548 million in net outflows since July 23.

There are many reasons for investors making decisions about capital reallocation away from spot ether ETFs. One salient contributor to poor performance — in addition to ether underperforming bitcoin — might be the lack of yield in spot ether ETFs.

Large holders of ETH may earn 3.3% in native yield by participating in Ethereum’s proof-of-stake while most ether ETFs, in contrast, do not pay any yield and actually charge a management fee.

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Ether has lost one-third of its bitcoin value in a year https://protos.com/ether-has-lost-one-third-of-its-bitcoin-value-in-a-year/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 11:56:06 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=75811 Ether’s curious failure to reach a new high in bitcoin terms for more than seven years has investors scratching their heads.

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Ether’s (ETH) market cap has shed approximately one-third of its value in bitcoin (BTC) terms in just 12 months. Even worse, it’s been an embarrassing seven years since ETH last rallied to a new high against the world’s leading crypto.

During the early months of Ethereum’s initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017, ETH rallied to an all-time high of approximately 0.15 per bitcoin. It hasn’t surpassed that level since.

Even in 2021, amid several positive catalysts for ETH investors, it only hit 0.088 per BTC. That was a commendable comeback from its September 2019 low of 0.016 but still 42% below its 2017 high.

Investors have bid progressively less and less BTC for ETH since 2021.

Understanding Ethereum’s failure to re-make a new high in BTC terms in 2021 is instructive for understanding its current, 32-month-and-counting decline.

Ethereum’s failure to make a new high against bitcoin in 2021

Back in 2021, investors were excitedly listening to announcements about Ethereum’s switch to wealth-based block validation dubbed ‘The Merge,’ predictions of ETH’s deflationary supply schedule called ‘ultrasound money,’ and most importantly, a network-wide transition to passive yield payouts of over 7% APR.

Indeed, just two months into 2022, predictions reached a feverish 9-12% from even Coinbase Institutional analysts. Today, ETH’s actual yield is 3.5%.

In 2021, in addition to The Merge, buzzy new uses for ETH around artwork speculation and supposedly passive income were also attracting mainstream attention.

Despite Ethereum-based NFTs gaining prominence, a resurgence of ultra-high DeFi yields like Olympus’ nose-bleeding 7,300% APY, and a cornucopia of other Ethereum DeFi protocols, investors were only willing to bid 58% as much BTC per ETH as they were four years prior.

All of those use cases weren’t enough. Investors have bid less and less BTC for ETH ever since.

Read more: All of Michael Saylor’s Ethereum predictions were wrong

Layer 2s, SEC approvals, and benchmark-setting performance

Nowadays, Ethereum’s most exciting and prominent use case seems to be layer 2s — chains of transaction data blocks that are periodically broadcast onto Ethereum’s blockchain. Yes, more blockchains seems to be Ethereum’s latest idea for how to make a comeback.

For 32 months, it hasn’t worked. ETH has been declining in BTC terms since December 2021.

This is in spite of many additional, substantial victories by Etherians.

  • The famously skeptical Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has finally admitted publicly, “The Commission has not concluded that ETH is a security.”
  • The SEC also approved the listing of several spot ETH ETFs on US securities markets.
  • Ethereum has not suffered any major network outage in years, unique wallets are at highs, nodes still number in the thousands, validators exceed 1 million, and most metrics of network health are stable.

Nevertheless, the crypto market appears to remain — as it has since inception — a ‘winner take most’ market.

Although there are millions of altcoins, ETH’s contention in second place has not been enough to convince investors to displace their confidence in BTC as the most compelling investment in the sector. Indeed, Ethereum competitor Solana has septupled against ETH since January 2023. Other altcoins are gaining prominence as well, such as Telegram, Binance, and Tron.

Solana has septupled against ETH since January 2023.

As it has for most years since 2009, BTC alone has a larger market capitalization than the combined tally of all altcoins. Its 53% dominance dwarfs Ethereum’s 15% and it has gained ground for more than two years.

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Ethervista ‘unconsciously hacked’ hundreds of times by bot https://protos.com/ethervista-unconsciously-hacked-hundreds-of-times-by-bot/ Thu, 05 Sep 2024 17:05:05 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=74267 Blockchain security specialist Chaofan Shou claimed that his bot exploited Ethervista by following the instructions of another attacker. 

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Ethervista, an Ethereum alternative to Solana’s Pump.fun platform, has reportedly been “unconsciously hacked” hundreds of times over the past couple of days by a bot unaware of its actions. 

That’s according to PhD student and blockchain security specialist Chaofan Shou, who claimed yesterday that his bot exploited Ethervista by unknowingly following the instructions of another attacker. 

Shou told Protos it was a “general backrun bot” that copies other transactions and applies it in the next few blocks. He said that an initial attacker manually hacked Ethervista by exploiting an “integer overflow in the router contract to steal all the fee in it.”

Because of this, Shou’s bot copied the transaction and performed the hacker’s malicious transaction over and over again. He said the bot was not designed for Ethervista and that, “both the bot and us did not know we are hacking Ethervista.”

Chaofan Shou’s original thread on the ‘unconscious’ hack.

According to Shou, the initial attacker was able to make 10 ETH ($23,766) while eight other bots collectively made ~20 ETH (~$47,500). His bot, he says, made ~8 ETH (~$19,000) and that the funds remain in his account. 

Before revealing the exploit Shou stressed that the liquidity pools on Ethervista are not at risk, claiming, “The vulnerability is in the router and can only be exploited to sweep fees.”

Ethervista experiencing other dilemmas

Unfortunately for Ethervista, it’s facing various problems besides accidental exploits. Shou also claimed there is a bug that “uses the fee parameters from the first pool and only pays to the first pool.” He said Ethervista’s swap fee can be “bypassed, and liquidity providers won’t receive any rewards.”

Cointelegraph also reported that crypto researcher Stacy Muur discovered transactions were failing when attempting to remove liquidity from the ETH/USDT pool.

Screenshot of the Ethervista platform.

Read more: Uniswap Labs pays $175K to settle CFTC charges

Styled after a classic Windows background, Ethervista launched on August 31, and allows users to create their own tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.

The VISTA token is worth $26.42 at the time of writing, having climbed 120% in two days and possessing a 24-hour trading volume of $76 million.

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Did Vitalik Buterin’s girlfriend stall Ethereum development? https://protos.com/did-vitalik-buterins-girlfriend-stall-ethereum-development/ Wed, 07 Aug 2024 17:59:05 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=72274 Fans of Ethereum want Vitalik Buterin to secure a steady girlfriend so he can focus on developing the world’s second-most valuable blockchain.

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The crypto community is looking for someone to blame for Ethereum’s recent underperformance, and they appear to have found their scapegoat. On August 1, someone posted a photo of Vitalik Buterin and an attractive woman wearing matching plush hats, naming her his ‘girlfriend.’

She would, the poster claimed, allow the brilliant co-founder to focus on Ethereum development and spark a rally to $10,000 per coin. Unfortunately, this hasn’t turned out to be the case.

Indeed, over the past week, Solana has outperformed ether by 9%, and over the past year, ether is up just 29% compared to Solana’s 400%. Ether is even underperforming Tron and meme coins like Pepe over the last 12 months.

It wasn’t the first time the Ethereum community has tried to ‘ship‘ Vitalik with female influencers or selfie-posing fans. Other ‘girlfriends’ seen with Vitalik derive from a restaurant photo, conference selfie, and phallic memes.

This morning, the same account that posted the original 1 million-impression tweet posted a photo of another ‘girlfriend.’ This time, the post claimed, the new girl would allow Vitalik to become so productive that ether would rally to $50,000.

These memes have some comedic appeal in part because they reflect subtle truths. Although the women in these photos might not be romantically involved with Buterin, there’s a widespread belief that because he’s so wealthy, he can date the most attractive women. Indeed, he is personally worth at least nine figures and might be a billionaire.

Read more: This boring TikTok went viral after pivoting to Vitalik Buterin cringe

CoinTelegraph later ripped off the original engagement-farming post, gaining a further 360,000 impressions.

First you get the crypto, then you get the women

Men in crypto have long professed a belief that success in crypto somehow culminates with earning trophy girlfriends. An early bitcoin influencer claimed that buying a memetic quantity of bitcoin would earn the holder eternal riches and well-endowed women. Similar claims are replete across crypto social media.

Over the last year, developer commits by Ethereum developers total 21,626 — an impressive yet lower number than commits by small altcoins like ICP, ADA, FLOW, or DOT.

For this reason, in addition to a slower rally relative to altcoins, fans shipping Vitalik Buterin with girls they see posing in photos is their way of encouraging him to focus on Ethereum development — even if it comes at the cost of disparaging womens’ role in the community.

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Ethereum beats bitcoin first-day spot ETF inflows https://protos.com/ethereum-beats-bitcoin-first-day-spot-etf-inflows/ Wed, 24 Jul 2024 11:25:10 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=71152 Against most predictions, nine spot Ethereum ETFs posted positive inflows for their debut in trading on US markets.

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Ethereum is approximately one-third the size of Bitcoin, and the debut of its spot ETFs was slightly less than commensurate by size. However, ether has outperformed bitcoin when we look at the absolute value of its net flows on the day of its ETFs debut. Ether posted a positive $107 million versus bitcoin’s decidedly negative -$1.5 billion.

First-day trading volume of Blackrock’s spot ether ETF totaled approximately one-quarter the volume of first-day trading volume of Blackrock’s spot bitcoin ETF.

Combined, trading volume for all nine spot ether ETFs totaled $1.112 billion yesterday — slightly under one-quarter the volume of all spot bitcoin ETFs on their debut day.

At the close of after-hours trading on US markets, net flow data was unavailable for two spot ether ETFs: Blackrock (ETHA) and Invesco/Galaxy (QETH). Excluding those two funds with unavailable data, most reporters went to bed reporting that money probably flowed out of spot ether ETFs. Net flows ex-ETHA/QETH totaled -$165.3 million. 

However, by midnight New York time, Blackrock and Invesco/Galaxy had updated their flow data. Impressively, Blackrock posted $267 million in net subscriptions, dragging the whole basket of ETFs into positive territory.

As of midnight, first-day spot ether ETF net inflows totaled $107 million. That significantly outperforms first-day spot bitcoin ETF net flows of -$1.5 billion.

ETF analysts worked until midnight to tally Ethereum’s data.

Had it not been for Blackrock’s impressive first-day performance with its ETHA, more money would have left spot ether ETFs than entered those funds on day one. That net ex-Blackrock negative flow would have had a single explanation: Grayscale’s liquidity event.

Once-trapped ETHE investors breathe a sigh of relief

For seven years, most investors in Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust (ETHE) have not been able to redeem their shares for ether. Prior to yesterday, ETHE was not an ETF and had no daily liquidity or rebalancing obligations to align its share price with the actual value of ether.

Instead of tracking the price of ether, ETHE traded at various premiums or discounts to its net asset value (NAV). After initial years of irrational exuberance, ETHE has traded at a discount to its NAV since 2021. At its worst, on December 28, 2022, ETHE traded at a 60% NAV discount.

The same phenomenon occurred in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) which traded at a discount to NAV from February 2021 through its ETF conversion in January 2024.

Since November 2021, long-term ETHE investors have patiently waited for Grayscale to win its bid to convert the trust into an ETF. That wish came true yesterday. On cue, investors withdrew a stunning $484.1 million from ETHE — enjoying not only price parity with spot ether but also cheaper maintenance fees in any of eight competing spot ether ETFs.

The correct answer to this poll: based.

New spot ether ETF cash inflows of $107 million is less than 0.1% of Ethereum’s $412 billion market capitalization. Net flows on the first day of spot bitcoin ETF trading were also worth less than 0.1% of bitcoin’s market capitalization.

Read more: If SEC approves ether ETF, will it approve altcoin ETFs?

Buy the rumor, sell the news

The debut of spot ether ETFs also had no same-day impact on ether’s price, which traded unchanged on the 24-hour trading session. As with most well-known market events, investors positioned themselves for today’s spot ether ETF debut far in advance.

On May 20, the price of ether rallied in the first major ETF news event. On that date, the SEC made surprisingly positive requests of spot ether ETF sponsors, indicating that commissioners were unlikely — as had previously been speculated — to flatly deny all ETF applications.

Due to that news, the price of ETH/BTC rallied from 0.046 to 0.055 just 24 hours later — a 20% outperformance of ether relative to bitcoin within one day.

On May 20, the price of ether rallied in the first major ETF news event.

Read more: All of Michael Saylor’s Ethereum predictions were wrong

In the weeks since that major move, ETH/BTC has traded around that post-rally range, indicating that most investors had already bid for ether weeks ago in anticipation of yesterday’s ETF debut.

In summary, ether outperformed bitcoin in its first day of spot ETF trading. Ethereum enjoyed $107 million of net inflows across all nine spot ether ETFs. Blackrock’s $266.5 million in net subscriptions led the pack in absorbing outflows from Grayscale. The second-best ETF by net inflows, Bitwise, subscribed $204 million.

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The post Ethereum beats bitcoin first-day spot ETF inflows appeared first on Protos.

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