The week is off to a flyer – well, for BTC. The OG crypto earlier breached US$57K for the first time in five months. Is it “Bitcoin season”? If so, the altcoins might have to wait their turn.

After a solid weekly candle close (highest since April), Bitcoin (BTC) is stealing the show once again this northern hemisphere Monday morning (evening, AEDT).

About two hours ago, at the time of writing, the no.1 crypto hit US$57,007, as the hopium for a BTC ETF (the futures variety) intensifies.

BlockFi, a major crypto custodian and lending platform, is the latest to join the Bitcoin ETF race, although it gets in line behind several others, including apparent favourite ProShares, Valkyrie, Invesco, VanEck and Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital. (See Bloomberg senior analyst Eric Balchunas’ summary and ETF predictions below.)

Meanwhile, as Bitcoin does it’s limelight-stealing thing, the altcoins (broadly speaking) are waiting in the wings, going over their lines. There will be some outliers here and there, of course, but perhaps it’s not quite their time to shine just yet.

Bitcoin runs first, quite often then Ethereum and the larger caps, then the excitement tends to burst down into the more speculative, lower-cap stuff. This is the way. Well, it has been in the past. As always with crypto, anything can happen, and usually does. Including massive dumps on rehashed news.

 

The latest from the SEC’s ‘Crypto Mom’ on DeFi

The US Securities and Exchange Commission hasn’t exactly been a good source for crypto-positive news in recent months. However, there is at least one commissioner at the agency who can be relied upon for a more measured, “do no harm” approach to the innovative sector.

Hester Peirce, dubbed “Crypto Mom” by the cryptoverse, spoke with Yahoo Finance last week about the sticky issue of regulating decentralised finance projects within the United States – protocols which the commission’s boss Gary Gensler seems determined to bring into line.

Commenting on crypto regulation, Commissioner Peirce said, “It is disconcerting to me that for three years now I’ve been asking for regulatory clarity and we can’t seem to provide any,” adding:

“I think this is really becoming a huge barrier to this industry being able to develop in the way that’s safe but also in a way that allows innovation to happen. And it’s a real shame to me that we are not just taking up the mantle as regulators to develop a regulatory framework.”

Peirce also said that she believes DeFi inherently has some ability to self regulate, and that the SEC needs to take that into account as it develops its regulations.

She did concede, however, the huge challenge that the SEC faces with regard to fairly regulating DeFi. “The decentralised world is one that is very new to us,” said Peirce, “because we are used to dealing with large, usually large, centralised intermediaries. So true decentralised projects do pose a challenge.”

 

Also making news: Chinese Big Mac NFTs; ‘Shib is pointless’

• To celebrate its 31st anniversary in the Chinese market, McDonald’s is giving away 188 “Big Mac Rubik’s Cube NFTs” to employees and customers.

How this fits in with China’s crypto ban, exactly, is anyone’s guess, but apparently a majority stake of Maccas China is owned by CITIC Group, a state-owned investment company of the People’s Republic of China.

• Hedge fund manager Michael Burry, famed for forecasting the 2008 financial crisis, has slammed the dog meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB). The token surged more than 230 per cent last week, but Burry, in a now-deleted tweet described it as “pointless”, criticising its one quadrillion supply.

Meanwhile, we looked around Crypto Twitter for a well-reasoned Shib Army response. Here’s what we found…

 

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