SEC postpones ruling on Fidelity Ether ETF options
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has postponed ruling on whether or not to permit Cboe BZX Exchange to list options tied to asset manager Fidelity’s Ether (ETH) exchange-traded fund (ETFs). The agency has given itself until May 14 to approve or disapprove of Cboe BZX’s request to list options tied to Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH), according to a March 12 SEC filing. Cboe BZX initially requested to list options on Fidelity’s Ether ETFs in January, the filing said. Listing options on Ether funds is an important step in attracting institutional capital to the cryptocurrency. Ether ETFs by net assets. Source: VettaFiRelated: SEC acknowledges slew of crypto ETF filings as reviews, approvals accelerateFlurry of filingsIn February, the SEC acknowledged more than a dozen exchange filings related to cryptocurrency ETFs, according to records.The SEC’s acknowledgments highlight how the agency has softened its stance on crypto since US President Donald Trump started his second term on Jan. 20.On March 11, Cboe BZX asked regulators for permission to incorporate staking into Fidelity’s Ether ETF. Staking is not yet permitted by any publicly traded US Ether fund. Staking Ether enhances returns and involves posting ETH as collateral with a validator in exchange for rewards.Fidelity’s FETH is among the more popular Ether ETFs, with around $780 million in net assets as of March 12, according to data from VettaFi. In February, the SEC delayed deciding on similar rule changes proposed by Nasdaq ISE and Cboe’s affiliate, Cboe Exchange — both US-based securities exchanges. The agency intends to decide by April if Nasdaq can list options tied to BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA). BlackRock’s fund is the largest ETH ETF, with more than $3.7 billion in net assets, VettaFi’s data shows.It will rule on Cboe Exchange’s bid to list options on Fidelity’s Ether fund in May. Spot Ether ETFs were listed in July 2024 and have proceeded to attract nearly $7 billion in net assets, according to VettaFi’s data. Options are contracts granting the right to buy or sell — “call” or “put,” in trader parlance — an underlying asset at a certain price.Magazine: MegaETH launch could save Ethereum… but at what cost?
Cboe BZX files Solana ETF application on behalf of Franklin Templeton
The Chicago Board Options BZX Exchange (Cboe) has submitted an application on behalf of asset manager Franklin Templeton to list a Solana (SOL) exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States.According to the March 12 filing, Franklin Templeton’s proposed ETF will hold spot SOL, and the filing encouraged the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow the fund to stake its underlying crypto for additional rewards.“Not staking the Fund’s SOL would amount to waiving the Fund’s right to free additional SOL, an act analogous to an equity ETP refusing dividends from the companies it holds,” the filing read.Franklin Templeton registered a Solana trust on Feb. 10, joining the ranks of Grayscale, Bitwise, VanEck, 21Shares and Canary Capital, who have all applied to list Solana-based investment vehicles.Solana was one of the digital assets US President Donald Trump named for inclusion in the US crypto stockpile before pulling back to include only tokens seized through enforcement actions. The Solana ETF application filed on behalf of Franklin Templeton. Source: CboeRelated: Franklin Templeton launches US gov’t money fund on SolanaDecisions on crypto ETFs delayedFormer SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s resignation in January 2025 sparked a torrent of crypto ETF filings, including several Solana-based products from asset managers anticipating a more relaxed regulatory climate.However, on March 11, the SEC announced it had delayed the decision on several altcoin ETFs, including applications for Solana, Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE) and XRP (XRP) products.The financial regulator said it needed more time to evaluate the rule change approving the proposals.According to Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart, this extended deliberation was standard procedure, and he argued that this doesn’t affect the high likelihood of the ETF applications being approved.The analyst added that the final approval deadline for these altcoin ETFs wasn’t until October 2025.Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson believes the Trump administration will follow through on the president’s pro-crypto agenda and integrate traditional financial systems with crypto.“I do think that it’s likely that ETFs and mutual funds will ultimately be built on blockchain just because it’s an incredibly efficient technology,” Johnson told Bloomberg in a Jan. 21 interview.Magazine: Bitcoin ETFs make Coinbase a ‘honeypot’ for hackers and governments: Trezor CEO
Axie Infinity’s new Web3 game, LVMH sued over NFT patent: Nifty Newsletter
Welcome to this week’s Nifty Newsletter, where we bring you the latest updates and developments in the world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). From new game releases to legal battles, here’s what’s been happening in the NFT space.
First up, blockchain gaming project Axie Infinity has released a trailer for its highly anticipated Web3 game, Atia’s Legacy. The game is set in the Axie universe and promises to provide true asset ownership to its players. This news comes at a time when the outlook for NFTs is turning positive, with the US Securities and Exchange Commission dropping investigations into major NFT projects and a Trump-owned company registering trademarks for an NFT marketplace.
In other news, luxury fashion giant LVMH has been sued for patent infringement by smartwatch face design firm Watch Skins. The company claims that LVMH’s watch brand TAG Heuer has unlawfully used its patented NFT display technology in a smartwatch and is seeking compensation and a court order to prevent further use of the technology.
Meanwhile, NFT trading volume has seen a significant decline of 63% since December 2024. This drop in trading volume has been attributed to the connection between NFT values and crypto prices. Despite this, there have been some positive regulatory developments and interest in the US, indicating that the NFT market may see a comeback in the near future.
Thank you for reading this week’s Nifty Newsletter. We hope you found it informative and insightful. Be sure to check back next Wednesday for more updates and insights into the ever-evolving world of NFTs. And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news and developments in the NFT space. See you next week!
SEC’s enforcement case against Ripple may be wrapping up
The US Securities and Exchange Commission may be preparing to end its enforcement action against Ripple Labs after more than four years.According to a March 12 X post from Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett, the SEC’s case against Ripple was “in the process of wrapping up” after the parties filed an appeal and cross-appeal, respectively, over a $125-million court judgment in August 2024. The civil case against the blockchain firm filed in December 2020 alleged Ripple and certain executives used XRP (XRP) as an unregistered security to raise funds.Ripple chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty told Cointelegraph on March 11 that the SEC civil case was “far more advanced” than many of the others the regulator had dropped following the inauguration of US President Donald Trump and the departure of Chair Gary Gensler. Since January, the SEC has announced it will not pursue enforcement cases against Coinbase, Consensys, Kraken and others.“We do have a judgment, we are on appeal — that presents some additional complexity,” said Alderoty in regard to the case potentially being dropped. “But we remain optimistic that we’ll get to a resolution with the SEC, and if we don’t, we’ll proceed with the appeal.” According to the Ripple CLO, there were several possible outcomes to ending the SEC case if both parties were in agreement that it should wind down. If Ripple and the SEC agreed independently to drop their appeal and cross-appeal in the Second Circuit, then the $125-million judgment in the lower court would stand. If there were a dispute over the monetary judgment, then the blockchain firm and the commission would have to go “hand-in-hand” to request any modification from a judge. Related: Why is the Ripple SEC case still ongoing amid a sea of resolutions?The SEC v. Ripple case involved one of the first significant court rulings favoring the crypto industry when Judge Analisa Torres said the XRP token was not a security under the regulator’s purview — but only in regard to programmatic sales on exchanges. At the time of publication, no filing suggesting the SEC intended to drop the case appeared on the docket for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York or the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Change of tone at SEC under TrumpThough the SEC filed the Ripple case under Trump’s former chair, Jay Clayton, the commission stepped up the number of enforcement actions following Gensler’s confirmation in 2021.Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in an interview aired in December 2024 that the firm may not have gotten as involved in US politics if the commission had been led by someone other than Gensler. Under Garlinghouse, Ripple contributed $45 million to the political action committee Fairshake for the previous election cycle and donated another $25 million in November 2024. Ripple pledged $5 million in XRP to Trump’s inauguration fund following his election victory, and both Garlinghouse and Alderoty attended Washington, DC events on Jan. 20 as official guests. The chief legal officer personally donated more than $300,000 to fundraising and political action committees supporting the US president.The correlation between political contributions to Trump and Republicans and the SEC dropping enforcement actions has many critics pointing to potential conflicts of interest in the administration. Coinbase, another major Fairshake backer that donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, had its SEC civil case halted in February. Its CEO, Brian Armstrong, also attended a March 7 crypto summit at the White House, along with Garlinghouse and others. Alderoty suggested that the SEC dropping cases was “independent” of any political donations and more reflective of Acting Chair Mark Uyeda’s perspective on the industry and related regulations. At the time of publication, the US Senate has not scheduled a hearing to consider the nomination of the potential next head of the commission, Paul Atkins. Commissioner Hester Peirce said in February that the SEC would be more likely to wait on setting a crypto regulatory agenda after a new chair took office. Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered
Binance introduces review mechanism to remove unqualified tokens
Binance announced on March 12 that its Alpha platform has implemented a new comprehensive token review framework that will aim to remove tokens that don’t meet certain quantitative and qualitative criteria.The quantitative metrics include trading volume stability, liquidity depth, frequency of onchain transactions and distribution of tokenholders. The qualitative metrics include project team credibility, adherence to regulatory compliance, community popularity and more. Tokens that don’t meet these standards will be removed from Binance Alpha, the announcement said.Binance Alpha is a platform within the company’s Wallet service that highlights new and early-stage crypto projects that “may have the potential for growth,” according to a Binance article about the platform. The platform launched in December 2024 with the goal of showcasing five tokens per day.According to CoinGecko, the Binance Alpha Spotlight coins have a market capitalization of $6.4 billion, with a 24-hour rise of 3.7% at the time of this writing and a trading volume of $1.4 billion. Flood of new coins shaking up listing proceduresCrypto exchanges, including Binance, are retooling their listing process to account for the rise in tokens, which has boomed to over 10 million in the past three years and continues to grow. On Feb. 8, 2025, the total number of coins listed on CoinMarketCap was nearing the 11 million mark. At the time of this writing, the number listed has risen to 12.5 million.Related: Abu Dhabi’s MGX backs Binance with $2B stablecoin investmentOn March 9, Binance announced a new community vote mechanism to help determine what coins would be listed on the exchange. Under the new rules, users will be able to vote on which tokens to list or delist, although Binance still has final approval on what tokens will be listed.Coinbase is rethinking its token listing procedures as well. In a Jan. 24 X post, the exchange’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, said, “We need to rethink our listing process at Coinbase, given there are ~1 million tokens a week being created now, and growing.”Armstrong called for regulators to take a more pragmatic approach, adding that “it needs to move from an allow list to a block list and utilize customer reviews and automated scans of onchain data to help customers sift through.”Many of the new tokens have come from the memecoin craze, which has seen a daily issuance of around 40,000 coins or more just on Solana from November 2024 to February 2025. However, the memecoin market has cooled as of late, with new launches on Pump.fun down 80% since its peak as of Feb. 27. Magazine: X Hall of Flame: DeFi will rise again after memecoins die down: Sasha Ivanov
Will Ethereum price bottom at $1.6K?
Ethereum’s native token, Ether (ETH), dropped below $2,000 on March 10, and the altcoin has struggled to regain a position above the psychological level. While Bitcoin (BTC) and XRP (XRP) exhibited minor recoveries over the past 24 hours, Ether prices failed to display bullish momentum in the charts. The altcoin plummeted to a multi-year low of $1,752 on March 11. However, onchain data and technical analysis indicate that the price could drop an additional 15% in the coming weeks. Ethereum dips below realized price after 2 yearsThe current price deviation below $2,000 carried onchain implications for the altcoin. According to Glassnode, a data analytics platform, ETH dropped below its realized price of $2,054 for the first time since February 2023. Ethereum realized price and MVRV. Source: X.comETH realized price calculates the average price of each ETH last moved, representing the average cost basis of the total circulating supply. The current drop below the realized price indicates widespread unrealized loss for all ETH holders. The market value to realized value (MVRV) ratio also dropped to 0.93, indicating a 7% average loss for all ETH holders across the network. However, it is important to note that the realized price reflects the weighted average of all historical transactions. Hence, it encompasses the cost basis of every ETH holder, not a specific timeframe like 2023 to 2025.Ethereum’s TVL chart. Source: DefiLlamaMeanwhile, Ethereum’s total value locked (TVL) dropped to a six-month low of $45.6 billion on March 12, down 41% from its peak of $77 billion on Dec. 17, 2024.Additionally, the total fees users paid to use Ethereum fell to $46.28 million—the lowest level since July 2020—further signaling weakening network engagement.Related: Starknet to settle on Bitcoin and Ethereum to unify the chainsEther price between $1.6K-$1.9K is “attractive”In a recent X post, Glassnode explained how Ethereum’s cost-basis distribution could be useful in identifying potential support levels for ETH. Based on a weekly outlook, Ether’s recent drop below $1,880 led to an accumulation of 600,000-700,000 ETH around $1,900. The post states, “This suggests $1.9K could establish itself as a support if $ETH consolidates at current levels. Above spot, $2.2K (465K $ETH) is the potential next resistance. The supply gap between $1.9K and $2.2K remains thin, making a short-term move towards resistance plausible.”Ethereum weekly analysis by Ninja. Source: X.comAt the same time, anonymous analyst Ninja believes that the floor price for Ethereum remains between $1,600 and $1,900. The trader added that the above range is an “attractive region for commercial money” and set a high swing target at $2,500. Related: Bitcoin whales hint at $80K ‘market rebound’ as Binance inflows coolThis article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
Indian authorities arrest alleged Garantex founder for US extradition
Officials with India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) announced the arrest of Lithuanian national Aleksej Bešciokov, who was alleged to have operated the cryptocurrency exchange Garantex. In a March 12 notice, the CBI said police in the Indian state of Kerala had coordinated with national authorities to arrest Bešciokov. The Lithuanian national was reportedly vacationing in India with his family and planning to leave the country. The arrest of the alleged Garantex founder was based on US charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.Aleksej Bešciokov’s “most wanted” page. Source: US Secret ServiceAccording to an indictment filed on Feb. 27 in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Bešciokov, Aleksandr Mira Serda and others operated Garantex to “launder the proceeds of criminal activity, including ransomware, computer hacking, narcotics transactions, and sanctions violations, and profited from the laundering” between 2019 to the present. Bešciokov is expected to be transferred to US custody in accordance with India’s Extradition Act of 1962.The alleged Garantex founder’s arrest followed Tether’s freezing of $27 million worth of USDt (USDT) on the platform. The crypto exchange announced on March 6 that it had temporarily suspended all services, including withdrawals. US authorities also seized three website domain names “used to support Garantex’s operations” as part of a judge’s order in the criminal case.Related: US sanctions crypto addresses linked to Nemesis darknet marketplaceThe US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control added Garantex to its list of sanctioned entities in April 2022 for “willfully disregard[ing] Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) obligations and allow[ing] their systems to be abused by illicit actors.” The European Union also imposed sanctions against the platform in February as part of sanctions on “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”Serda, a Russian national and Garantex’s co-founder and chief commercial officer, was seemingly still at large at the time of Bešciokov’s arrest. Delays returning to the United States?It’s unclear what legal recourse Bešciokov could have in fighting US extradition from India should he choose to do so. Lawyers for Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon, who was arrested in Montenegro in March 2023 on unrelated charges, repeatedly appealed court decisions regarding US extradition before he was finally handed over to officials in December 2024. Former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who was in the Bahamas when crypto exchange FTX collapsed in November 2022, was extradited from the island nation to the US to face charges. He was later convicted of seven felony counts and sentenced to 25 years in prison but filed an appeal. Magazine: Meet lawyer Max Burwick — ‘The ambulance chaser of crypto’
Abu Dhabi’s MGX backs Binance with $2B stablecoin investment
Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX has made a groundbreaking move in the cryptocurrency industry by investing a whopping $2 billion in the popular exchange, Binance. This marks one of the largest funding deals in the history of the industry and solidifies MGX’s position as a major player in the emerging technology sector.
In an official announcement on March 12, Binance revealed that this transaction is the first institutional investment in the exchange and will be fully funded through stablecoins. However, the specific stablecoin used in the deal has not been disclosed.
This investment marks MGX’s first foray into the world of cryptocurrency, as the company has previously focused on emerging technologies such as data centers, clean energy, and AI. By investing in Binance, MGX aims to drive innovation at the intersection of AI, blockchain technology, and finance.
Binance, which boasts over 260 million registered users, is currently the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of users and daily transaction volumes. The exchange offers a wide range of 466 cryptocurrencies, according to CoinMarketCap. However, with the recent explosion of altcoins, Binance is considering implementing quality control changes to its listing process.
This massive investment by MGX is just one example of the growing trend of venture capital funding in the cryptocurrency industry. In February alone, 137 crypto companies raised a total of $1.11 billion in funding, according to data from The TIE. And with the positive regulatory developments in the United States and the anticipation of more favorable financing conditions, it is expected that crypto firms will raise over $18 billion in 2025, surpassing the $13.6 billion raised in 2024.
The macro environment is also expected to improve, with the US manufacturing PMI turning positive for the first time in over two years. This, along with the influx of global liquidity into risk assets, is expected to drive more VC investments in the coming months.
As the industry continues to grow and attract more attention from traditional investors, it is clear that cryptocurrency is here to stay. And with major players like MGX backing exchanges like Binance, the future looks bright for the industry.