The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is facing a 20% discount on the underlying asset. The firm is now hoping to pivot to a Bitcoin ETF. While Grayscale Bitcoin Trust has some similarities with a Bitcoin ETF, giving investors exposure to Bitcoin without the need to physically buy or hold the asset, the two have some differences.

GBTC enables investors to trade shares in trusts holding large pools of Bitcoin, while a Bitcoin ETF offers an opportunity to invest in a fund that directly tracks the price of the underlying asset.

Another important difference is that GBTC shares are created by Grayscale, the operator of the trust, and can be redeemed only after a set period of time. A Bitcoin ETF, however, allows for the creation and redemption of the shares at will, meaning that a premium or discount is normally unlikely if there’s enough liquidity.

Some notable investors in GBTC include Morgan Stanley, which is one of the largest investment banks in the U.S., value fund manager Bill Miller, and Cathie Wood’s investment house ARK Invest.more

The first-ever Bitcoin ETF has hit the market. And it nearly broke the trading record for any debuting ETF. The first U.S. Bitcoin futures ETF launched today, and eager investors traded $280 million-worth of shares in just the first 20 minutes. By the time the market closed on Tuesday, nearly $1 billion in shares changed hands.

ProShares’ Bitcoin Strategy ETF launched today on Wall Street after receiving approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. Trading under the ticker BITO on the New York Stock Exchange, investors wanting exposure to the biggest cryptocurrency were able to buy shares tied to the future price of Bitcoin, which rose to $42.15 at one point—a 5.4% up from the initial net asset value of $40. Its closing price was $41.94, an increase of 4.85%.more

But New York does want more information on Celsius' operations. Celsius has denied receiving a cease-and-desist letter from New York State Attorney General Letitia James, a day after James directed two unnamed crypto lenders to stop operating in the Empire State within 10 days and requested three more to provide information by November 1.

"Celsius has received a request for information (and not a cease and desist) from NY authorities," it wrote via its Medium blog today. In a press release yesterday, the New York Attorney General's Office took aim at crypto companies that have not registered securities offerings under New York's Martin Act. The press release was accompanied by two cease-and-desist letters with identifying information about the companies redacted. However, the NYAG had named the files "Nexo Letter" and "Celsius Letter," strongly suggesting that these were the two crypto lenders being asked to shut down.

Celsius competitor Nexo yesterday confirmed receiving the order but called it a "mix up."

“Nexo is not offering its Earn Product and Exchange in New York, so it makes little sense to be receiving a cease and desist order for something we are not offering in New York anyway,” a spokesperson said. It vowed to "engage with the NY AG and seek clarity."more

The metaverse is still emerging, but it's becoming clear that NFTs will be the key to unlocking many parts of it. For many, the term NFT conjures images of digital artworks and collectibles tied to what seems like inordinate sums of money. But the digital art frenzy reflects a compelling use case, it is hardly the only thing going for the NFT sector. The road ahead is full of opportunities for hobbyists, enterprises, and investors that will hasten NFT adoption and usage. And chief among them is NFT-controlled access—particularly to the metaverse.

The metaverse represents the sum of all the processes and protocols that power the internet and the emerging Web3, and are coalescing into a central and interoperable space. In this future realm, communications, finances, game worlds, personal profiles, NFTs, and more are all part of a larger online experience.more

Crypto startup Jambb raises $3.5M for tokenized comedy highlights from Hannibal Buress, Maria Bamford, and more.
Amidst this spring’s initial NFT market boom, NBA Top Shot proved that there’s a market for selling video clips as blockchain-backed collectibles. Now, the same Flow blockchain platform that powers Top Shot will be used to release stand-up comedy clips from popular comedians such as Hannibal Buress and Maria Bamford.
Crypto startup Jambb was founded last year to release digital collectibles, and today revealed more of its plans while announcing a $3.5 million seed round. The round was co-led by Arrington Capital and Animoca Brands—the latter firm a leading player in the growing NFT gaming space. Flow and Top Shot creator Dapper Labs also participated in the round.more

DOT is putting an exclamation point on an already good week. Earlier this fall, Cardano and Solana were lapping up the attention, as the two "Ethereum killers" battled for spots on the cryptocurrency leaderboard. Now, Polkadot's DOT coin is throwing elbows to get to the front.

The price of DOT rose 25% over 24 hours—part of a 36% gain over the last week—to zoom past $42 today. That's the most expensive the asset has been since May, when it reached an all-time high of $49.35, according to CoinGecko. As of publication, the price sits at $41.50.

It's probably not a coincidence that, after five years of development from Parity Technologies  (the engineering team behind Polkadot), the project announced yesterday it was ready to launch what it calls "parachains." The Polkadot leadership group subsequently voted to begin auctions for parachain slots starting November 11.

Parachains are their own blockchains that run alongside the main network, using it for security and to validate transactions. Polkadot, then, is all about blockchain interoperability, with an eye toward increasing the number of transactions a network can process.more

NFT movie platform VUELE says "Zero Contact" will be "the world's first NFT feature film." NFTs are digital tokens on a blockchain that represent ownership of another asset. That can include digital trading cards, GIFs, physical works of art, or video clips. The highest-valued NFTs are usually one-of-a-kind, but many are sold in larger "limited" editions. VUELE's value proposition is to bring them to films so that movie watchers can buy, watch, and even sell the NFTs found on the platform. When asked which blockchain it would be using, VUELE told Decrypt via email that it "will be using its own proprietary platform."
Non-fungible tokens registered $2.5 billion in sales for the first half of 2021, compared to $13.7 million from January to June 2020. Yet the market is in transition, as former top dog Top Shot—the NBA's digital trading card NFTs—and others have lost market share to newer platforms.more

The militant organization—and designated terrorist group by many world powers—has received lots of crypto recently. Those addresses have received $7.7 million in cryptocurrency, according to blockchain analytics company Elliptic. It calculated that over $40,000 has been Dogecoin, a “meme coin” that has exploded in popularity recently.

But by far the biggest volume of crypto received by the allegedly dodgy addresses was in the stablecoin Tether, at $4.1 million, followed by Bitcoin with $3.3 million, Elliptic said.

“The seizure order indicates that Hamas is now using a range of cryptoassets—including Dogecoin, Tether and Ether,” a blog post by Elliptic read.

Hamas, is the largest of several Palestinian militant Islamist groups. It runs the Gaza Strip and is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the US, the European Union, the UK, and other major world powers.more