Morning Minute | ETH Soars 20% on ETF Approval Speculation

TylerD's Market Summary

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📈 ETH ETF Approval Appears Imminent

The ETH ETFs seemed dead in the water, at least for a May approval.

Polymarket had the approval odds down to 11% just yesterday morning.

Then a few analyst comments followed by some breaking headlines changed everything.

And ETH rocketed.

What Happened?

Yesterday afternoon Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas updated his odds for ETH ETF approval to 75% (from 25%).

His rationale was that the SEC was likely doing a 180 degree change as crytpo has become increasingly political.

Just a few hours later, the SEC formally asked exchanges to update their ETF filing "on an accelerated basis."

Then this morning, Fidelity updated their filing to remove ETH staking.

So it looks like the ETH ETFs are very likely to be approved this month now, but without the staking component.

The market responded violently.

Market Impact

ETH printed a 20% god candle yesterday, jumping from $3,100 to $3,770.

It's the single biggest daily candle in ETH's history.

And it lifted the entire ETH ecosystem.

• L2's like ARB (+22%) and OP (+13%) soared
• Uniswap pumped 20%
• ETH memecoins like PEPE (+20%), MOG (+45%) and BITCOIN (+45%) surged
• Base SocialFi tokens DEGEN (+20% and FRIEND (+10%) won too

A huge green day all around.

It does seem telling that ETH memes were the biggest winner on the day, as traders look for the strongest ETH beta plays into the ETF approval event.

As for NFTs, they did take a hit, mostly down 4-8%.

Why It Matters

Of course this is a major event for ETH. We have seen what the ETFs have done for inflows into Bitcoin.

But perhaps the bigger takeaway here is the political shift that may be happening.

Trump has made crypto into a growing political issue and the Dems had become the anti-crypto party.

It seems they may have caught wind of that and may be changing course.

And a softer, more receptive political backdrop for crypto would be an incredibly welcome change.

This has become one of the most important storylines in crypto to watch over the coming months: how the SEC handles crypto, Democrat rhetoric and broader signaling.

If they flip supportive, Raoul Pal's "banana zone" call may be right on track for 2024.

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

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

• ETH led NFT trading volume with $10M on the day (+133%); BTC was next with $5.8M (+60%) and then Solana with $3.1M 
• ETH NFT leaders were mostly red down 4-8% after ETH's pump; BAYC -5% to 12.8 ETH, Pudgy -4% to 11, Azuki even at 5, MAYC -10% to 2.28
• Milady and Remilio were top performers, jumping 33% each to 5.54 ETH and 1.85 ETH respectively 
• BTC NFT leaders held steady through the BTC rip; Puppets at 0.17 BTC, NodeMonkes at 0.275, OMB at 0.345 (+10%) and Quantum Cats at 0.3 (-10%)
• RSIC runes pumped alongside BTC, jumping 30% to $208M mc
• Solana NFTs saw slight red on the day; Mad Lads +1% at 62 SOL, Tensorians -0% at 11; DeGods -2% to 29, and SMB Gen 2 -1% at 32
• Blast NFTs were mostly green on Monday; Apollo (+4%), Plutocats (+1%) and Blastopians (+4%) led volume
• Cryptopunks saw some FUD after Nina Chanel's latest auction was announced for Weds May 29 with a teaser video which was not received well from the community; Garga then changed the distribution to Nina's Super Cool World holders instead of Punks holders
• Memeland launched its new Stakeland quest tied to Pixelmon

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token or airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

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

• Crypto majors are mega-green this morning after the ETH ETF chatter; BTC +6% at $71,080; ETH +20% at $3,740, SOL +2% at $182
• Memecoin majors were green with DOGE +8%, PEPE +20%, WIF +5%, BONK +30%; MOG, BITCOIN outperform
• Gala Games was exploited for $230M in a hack that allowed the unauthorized minting of 5B new tokens which were sold
• Coinbase teased a Coinbase Pizza Food Truck for May 22 in Washington Square Park, NYC
• Binance's Web3 Wallet introduced two new ways to earn yield with its "Simple Yield" and "Yield Plus" features
• Rabby implemented new rules to allow additional users to take advantage of its "free gas" feature

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $BITCOIN (+46%, $135M market cap, ETH)
• $MOG (+44%, $307M market cap, ETH)
• $MAGA (+42%, $65M market cap, ETH)
• $BANANA (+42%, $360M market cap, ETH)
• $ANDY (+40%, $63M market cap, ETH)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Milady (34%, 5.49 ETH Floor)
• Redacted Remilio (34%, 1.86 ETH)
• Yayo NFT (28%, 0.25 ETH)
• Sword of Grandia (13%, 0.3 ETH)
• Persona (12%, 0.24 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

Today is one of the bigger days of mints in quite some time.

Leading AI artist Roope Rainisto ix back with his Vacation project, his marquee drop of this year.

Melissa Weiderrecht is also back with the first major Art Blocks Studio drop in Misbah.

Mercedes NXT has aa drop and Bored Apes have their ApeFest ticket sale today.

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

• Roope Rainisto x Verse - Vacation (9:00 a.m. ET)
• Scrips (12:00 p.m. ET)
• Mercedes Benz NXT - The Era of Technology (12:00 p.m. ET)
• Melissa Wiederrecht x AB Studio - Misbah (1:00 p.m. ET)
• ApeFest ticket sale (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 to tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.