- The Breakdown
- Posts
- Senate Votes to Repeal SEC’s SAB 121 Guidance
Senate Votes to Repeal SEC’s SAB 121 Guidance
Plus 900+ Institutional Investors Now Hold Bitcoin ETFs
Nathaniel Whittemore
May 17, 2024
The Breakdown First Five - Friday, May 17, 2024
Welcome back to The Breakdown First Five — the 5 most interesting and/or important stories in bitcoin, crypto, and markets to start your day.
5. Pump Less Fun
A pump.fun insider has rugged the protocol for $1.9M. The former employee used their “priviledged position” and “withdraw authority” to compromise the system according to pump.fun. The exploiter used flash loans to “buy as many coins” as possible on the platform. Pump.fun say that their smart contracts are still safe and the platform is back to being fully operational after a short pause.
1/6
It seems like @pumpdotfun lost ~2k SOL ($300k+) and a bunch of memecoins through a possible private key leakage
So let me share evidence of it👇
— Igor Igamberdiev (@FrankResearcher)
5:50 PM • May 16, 2024
4. ETHBTC Hits Three-Year Low
Is it over for Ethereum? The ETHBTC ratio has hit a three year, falling below 0.05%. The ratio has fallen almost 16% over the past year as Bitcoin outperformed. It’s difficult to see a catalyst on the horizon, with the ETH ETF currently expected to be rejected next week. Ilan Solot of Marex Solutions said that ETH has been a “lightning rod” for negative sentiment and has suffered from capital fragmentation across a multitude of ecosystem tokens and L2s.
Nobody is bearish enough on $ETHBTC
It's more likely in a downtrend since June '17 than an overall uptrend.
Feels like in a couple years, it will become clearer it is following the same path as most alts — just on a very large scale.
— Sean Mackey (@smack002)
5:33 PM • May 15, 2024
3. Treasury’s AML Plan
The Treasury has released a comprehensive illicit finance strategy with a significant focus on crypto. The plan centered around improving effectiveness, updating regulations and taking advantage of more tech. Treasury officials said they would be working with congress on greater funding and enhanced tools. They also expressed the need to implement global FATF standards.
Today, Treasury published its 2024 National Strategy for Combating Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing: an important roadmap for U.S. government efforts to strengthen our economic and national security by combatting illicit finance.
— Under Secretary Brian Nelson (@UnderSecTFI)
7:40 PM • May 16, 2024
2. 900+ ETF Holders
The 13F position disclosure filings continue to flood in and it’s becoming clear that Bitcoin has reached institutional adoption. Over 900 funds and firms larger than $100M AUM owned Bitcoin ETFs at the end of March. Around 25% of positions were from hedge funds, which may just be in it for the trade, but 60% were buy and hold investment advisors. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan thinks funds are still dipping their toes, but the wave of 13Fs sends the message: “You are not alone.”
$IBIT ended up with 414 reported holders in its first 13F season, which is mind boggling, blows away record. Even having 20 holders as a newborn is bfd, highly rare. Here's a look at how the btc ETFs compare to other ETFs launched in Jan (aka the Class of 2024) in this metric.
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas)
12:13 PM • May 16, 2024
1. Senate Votes on SAB 121
The Senate has voted to repeal SEC’s SAB 121 guidance, moving the bill onto the President’s desk. The threatened veto is still expected at this stage. Twelve democrats defied the Whitehouse to vote for the bill, including Senate majority leader Chuck Shumer. This vote appears to cement the idea that the SEC and the anti-crypto army have lost significant support within the Democratic party, but it could just simply be election posturing by at risk lawmakers.
This is a watershed moment for crypto.
The dam built by Elizabeth Warren is starting to break.
She tried—and failed—to make this a partisan issue.
Expect more Dems to find their voice in the months to come.
— Sam Lyman (@SamLyman33)
7:37 PM • May 16, 2024