This Week in Coins: Ethereum ETFs Get the Green Light, Dogecoin Jumps on Elon Musk Tweet

By Mat Di Salvo

Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.

It’s been a wild week for crypto, with what many see as a complete 180-degree turn from the Securities and Exchange Commission when the regulator on Thursday approved eight spot Ethereum ETFs. The SEC said yes to the likes of Grayscale, VanEck, Fidelity, and BlackRock after industry observers said for months that the products would not get approved.

Despite the funds now making their way to the market, the price of the coin didn't move much on the news. It still had a great week since rumors of incoming approvals dropped on Monday: ETH is now trading for $3,747, a more than 20% seven-day jump.

The ETFs won't be available until applicants sort their S-1 forms out with the SEC. But the approval is a big win for the space. Soon, traditional investors will be able to buy shares that track the price of the second-biggest digital asset—and if the eventual launch of the products is anything like the Bitcoin ETF one, capital will flood the space.

Bitcoin rode off the back of the ETH approval rumors on Monday and passed the $70,000 mark for the first time in more than a month.

The price of the biggest digital asset has since dipped and is now at $68,757 per coin, per data from CoinGecko, a 2.8% increase over the week.

Other coins and tokens have risen over the past week, with Chainlink, Avalanche, and Bitcoin Cash making gains of 4.8%, 3.1%, and 3% respectively.

But Dogecoin is the best-performer out of the top assets, having jumped by 7% in one week.

It's now priced at $0.1656 after Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted a picture on Twitter expressing his condolences for Kabosu, the Shiba Inu behind the Doge meme, who died Friday.

Dogecoin, the original meme coin, was created as a joke by developers wanting to poke fun at the seriousness of Bitcoin. But it gained near-mainstream traction in 2021 when Elon Musk—currently the third richest person on the planet—started pumping the coin on Twitter, the platform he now owns.

Its market cap has since grown and it's the ninth biggest cryptocurrency as a result.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa. Prices as of 4:30 a.m. ET.

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