This Week on Crypto Twitter: Ethereum Futures ETFs and the FTX Saga

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A multitude of positive crypto headlines did little to rally the prices of leading cryptocurrencies this week. On Tuesday, JP Morgan’s crypto lead Tyrone Lobban remarked at a panel in London that Bitcoin is “maybe more like a stablecoin nowadays”—a statement that regular readers of this This Week in Coins likely concur with.

This bodes well for crypto. After all, one of the most common criticisms of leading unbacked cryptocurrencies is that they’re pretty volatile. Despite the reputational damage caused by last year’s wave of industry bankruptcies, U.S. companies have redoubled their efforts to get crypto-related investment products on the market. One such product is the elusive spot ETF.

This week, Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein made an important announcement. The crypto asset manager is now doing to its Ethereum fund what it’s been trying at length to do with its Bitcoin fund. Grayscale’s redoubled assault on the SEC stemmed from a courtroom victory back in late August when it won an appeal against the regulator after the latter rejected its application to convert its Bitcoin trust into a spot ETF.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas tracked the U.S. launch of nine Ethereum Futures ETFs on Monday.

AND THEY’RE OFF.. Ether Futres Derby underway.. VanEck in a slight early lead, altho looks like a few of them not out of gate yet, will post updates as we go.. pic.twitter.com/lzfD4FCTnn
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) October 2, 2023

Scimitar Capital analyst Alex noted the lack of enthusiasm for VanEck’s offering.

If VanEck does profit from its new Ethereum Futures ETF, it will channel the money into Protocol Guild, a collective of 152 Ethereum protocol developers who have pooled together to coordinate and share funding.

Big announcement!
We intend to donate 10% of our $EFUT ETF profits (https://t.co/gr652AkUvv) to @ProtocolGuild for at least 10 years.
Thank you, Ethereum contributors, for nearly a decade of relentless building & ongoing stewardship of this common infrastructure.
Details 👇
— VanEck (@vaneck_us) September 29, 2023

The IMF knows the potentially destabilizing risks crypto poses to traditional finance, tweeted Lido Finance’s Sacha on Wednesday.

A video interview about visual art with the creator of the most expensive NFT collection sold at auction, Beeple, made the rounds on Wednesday.

Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey’s crypto-friendly payments company Block strongly advocates self-custody.

JUST IN: Jack Dorsey’s Block is quietly shipping the first editions of its new #Bitcoin hardware wallet
One of the largest payments firms in the US promoting financial sovereignty and self custody 🔥 pic.twitter.com/lnGEB7k80a
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) October 4, 2023

Messari Crypto’s CEO Ryan Selkis shared a chart revealing a steady decline in active crypto developers this year. Let’s hope it’s the scammers and opportunists dropping off!

Meanwhile in FTX…

The industry’s favorite ongoing courtroom saga was heavily commented on this week after the release of a book by Michael Lewis that whitewashes allegations that disgraced former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was misusing customer money and misdirecting people. Needless to say, several crypto fans called out Lewis’s depiction of events.

Michael Lewis is completely full of shit
FTX was not a “profitable business”
— Vance Spencer (@pythianism) October 2, 2023

🚨Finished reading Michael Lewis’ new book so you don’t have to. You were not misled by the 60 minutes interview. It is a full-out defense of SBF. He spends more time questioning the intentions of the BANKRUPTCY LAWYER John Ray, than he does SBF.
I’m speechless. pic.twitter.com/ID7d8bRrrf
— Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT) October 3, 2023

Wall Street cynic “Diogenes” (@WallStCynic) was not impressed by Lewis’s promotional interview and noted some historical parallels with the Enron bankruptcy. It’s worth noting that the appointed CEO in both cases is lawyer John J. Ray III.

This was literally Enron’s defense. “If it wasn’t for those meddling short-sellers and journalists causing a run-on-the-bank, we would’ve been fine.” This is nonsense, as both FTX and Enron were both massively insolvent, not illiquid. https://t.co/3nrJqUrYCg
— Diogenes (@WallStCynic) October 2, 2023

Who wants a lifetime supply of money for 60 hours of work? We all do, but only some of us can get it in this life.

FTX earnings:
• Tom Brady – $55 million• Steph Curry – $35 million• Larry David – $10 million
Brady and Curry worked a total of roughly 60 hours pic.twitter.com/qPxU30KJ0W
— Morning Brew ☕️ (@MorningBrew) October 2, 2023

Convicted felon and pharma bro Martin Shkreli—who raised the price of a lifesaving antiparasitic drug called Daraprim by 5,455% and was incarcerated for unrelated charges of fraud—had a lot to vent about FTX’s relationship to Twitter.

SBF (or FTX or Alameda) was somehow long $100m of $TWTR before the @elonmusk announcement. Probably insider trading. 🤣
SBF liked to talk to Nishad & Ramnik before he made large investments. SBF thought Elon wanted him to invest, but it was the M/Stanley bankers (my knowledge).
— Martin Shkreli (e/acc) (@wagieeacc) October 3, 2023

Could a new fundraise for a company that FTX has a stake in be big enough to make the former exchange’s creditors whole? Tanay Jaipuria thinks so.

With Anthropic rumoured to be raising at a $20-30B valuation, FTX’s stake in it could be worth ~$3B+
That may be enough to make all of FTX’s creditors whole🤣
— Tanay Jaipuria (@tanayj) October 4, 2023

Finally, one tweeter caught the sudden unstaking of millions of dollars of SOL held by FTX’s equally bankrupt sister company, Alameda.

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