Morning Minute | BTC ETFs Approved - Now What?

TylerD's Market Summary

Get ready for fireworks on the first day of trading for the BTC ETFs today, and we may have seen a glimpse of what to expect last night.

🎉 BTC ETFs Finally Approved

It finally happened.

After more than 10 years since the first spot Bitcoin ETF request (from the Winklevoss twins in 2013), the SEC has formally approved the BTC ETFs to begin trading.

The decision cements Jan 10, 2024, as a legendary day in crypto lore and one for the history books.

But given this has been widely anticipated for weeks and months now, the question on everyone's mind turns to - 

So what now?

Well we may have gotten a preview of what to expect next, last night.

What Happened?

After the formal SEC approval yesterday afternoon, which saw Gary Gensler cast the deciding vote, several events were put in motion:

• Bloomberg predicted $4B in BTC ETF inflows on day 1 of trading (that's today)
• Cathie Wood ran an X spaces with Elon Musk and laser-eye BTC maxis talking about the ETFs, and Franklin Templeton changed their PFP to a laser-eyes Benjamin Franklin
• ETH started running, leading all majors up 10% to $2,650 (and congressmen started buying), with ARB and ENS outperforming
• ETH NFTs continued to bleed out, with most leaders down 3-7%

Each of these 4 events are important signals on what's to come in the near future.

Inflows: $4B of inflows on day 1 were NOT priced in; if these ETFs really receive that level of demand today, the price of BTC is going up, and rapidly. There are open questions on how much BTC has already been seeded (pre-bought) vs what will have to be market bought today - we should find out in real time in a few hours.

Marketing: The BTC ETF commercials started a few weeks back, and on the day of approval, we already saw ARK's Cathie Wood hosting a BTC-focused X space. And then Franklin Templeton changing their PFP to the laser-eyed Benjamin Franklin gave a preview of just how crazy things could get this cycle. The marketing by these institutions is just getting started and is going to be huge.

The next shiny object: ETH, at least that's current consensus. The ETH ETFs are the next spotlight, and speculators have started placing their bets. And traders are already looking for ETH beta plays which could outperform, like L2s (Arbitrum, Optimism), ENS and even PEPE. Expect ETH to be squarely in focus for the coming weeks & months.

NFT Impact: The ETH NFT scene is a bloodbath with ETH ripping, though there are more factors at play with a Blur farming mess playing out. It's hard to see that changing in the near-term if ETH starts grinding up rapidly, as traders will prefer coin exposure to NFTs. Ordinals volume has significantly slowed as well as buyers wait and see what happens in these early days of ETF trading.

There's a lot to unpack, and there will likely be unforeseen consequences and impacts of the ETF approvals (some are even saying Gary may come after Alts as "revenge" for the BTC ETF approvals).

All that aside, let's all take some time to enjoy the euphoria a bit before getting back to work.

For those that stayed and grinded through the entire bear market, yesterday (and today), are days to celebrate.

Enjoy it!

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• ETH trading volume fell to $21.2M on Wednesday; leaders were mostly red though down 3-7% as ETH pumped
• BAYC led volume again but fell another 5% to 22.75, with MAYC -7% to 4.22; Pudgy Penguins and Azuki were the lone leaders in green, +1% each at 10.75 and 6.82 ETH
• New mint Age of Dino minted out at 0.59 ETH and quickly doubled on secondary, reaching 1.3 ETH before pulling back to 1.05
• Node Monkes led trading on Bitcoin, holding steady at 0.172 BTC floor; gen art project Ordinal MIMI jumped 170% to 0.027 BTC
• Saga Monkes led trading on Solana, though falling 22% to 8.3 SOL; Mad Lads at 177, Tensorians at 99
• Solana's leading NFT marketplace Tensor teased a partnership with Mad Lads and the Backpack Exchange, potentially meaning airdrops for holders of both NFTs
• XCOPY launched 2 new burn-to-mint drops for Max Pain holders, an x/250 called BANG_BANG for 0.2 ETH + burn, and an x/500 SIDEWAYZ for 0.1 ETH + burn; the Max Pain floor briefly spiked to 0.7 ETH before falling back to 0.46 in a sign of lack of interest in this supply influx
• Azuki announced that it's working with anime director and producer Gorō Taniguchi for an anthology series coming in 2024
• X (Twitter) has removed its hexagon NFT profile picture support for premium subs as it prepares to launch its new p2p payment tool
• Jack Butcher released his latest Opepen set 29 "Approved"

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors soared on Wednesday after the BTC ETF approvals; BTC +3.7% at $47,100; ETH +11% at $2,650; SOL +8% at $104.23
• ARB & ENS jumped on the ETH rally, with ARB +18% to $2.32 and ENS +49% to $23.22
• WIF led headlines after REDAO bought $6.2M worth in 1 txn, briefly spiking the price over $2.75 before retracing immediately; Arthur Hayes referenced the meme for his next blog overnight, sending it back to $250M

🚀 NFT Total Volume (ETH)

• BAYC (1,575 ETH, 22.75 ETH Floor)
• Azuki (1,384 ETH, 6.83 ETH Floor)
• MAYC (1,210 ETH, 4.22 ETH)
• Pudgy Penguins (1,120 ETH, 10.75 ETH)
• Age of Dino (992 ETH, 1.05 ETH)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Loot (62%, 0.69 ETH Floor)
• Project Godjira (57%, 0.44 ETH)
• Sybil Samurai (42%, 0.13 ETH)
• POL (33%, 0.16 ETH)
• Velocity series (31%, 0.42 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

The highlight today is the Shadows mint from Dotta and the Forgotten Runes crew.

It's a BTC Ordinals mint for 600 NFTs in a 24-hour ascending auction. Anyone who bids 0.2 BTC (max bid) will be entered for a chance to win 1 Shadow Hat (on very rare inscriptions with a floor over 0.5 BTC).

These style of auctions have typically led to poor secondary performance, so we'll see if this one bucks the trend this weekend. But with ETH traders paying 4-5 ETH for NFTs which guarantee a free mint, demand is clearly here for this.

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• Mayhem (10:00 a.m. ET)
• Nullish (12:00 p.m. ET)
• Gabe Weis - Anti-Stoic Spectacle (2:00 p.m. ET)
• Shadow Hats - Shadows (4:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.