Crypto ready to rock

Excitement surrounding the potentially due-any-moment bombshell birth announcement of Ethereum ETFs – as well as the bipartisan advancement of favorable crypto legislation – could conceivably give the market a festive sun splash heading into summer.

Today marks the deadline for the SEC to decide whether to approve or deny VanEck's proposed ETH ETF product. The prospect of approval seems more likely by the hour with more sources telling business reporters about rumblings in corridors of power to the effect of, yeah this is going to happen. ETH trading volume at one point yesterday ballooned to north of $40 billion (while averaging $30 billion in the past 24 hours). As of 8:42 a.m. (EST), per-token spot ETH was crossing the $3,900 level on a gain of 7% in the past day.

With a seismic Ethereum event looming, there was some groundbreaking history being made in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday: the U.S. House of Representatives passed its first significant crypto regulation bill (CoinDesk).

Driven by House Republicans, the legislation would establish a regime to regulate the U.S. crypto markets, while placing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in the role of lead regulator.

Industry supporters applauded the bill’s passage (even if it may only wind up being a symbolic gesture), hailing a much-needed step in the right direction in terms of crypto finally getting some rules of the road, with industry participants and watchdogs finally singing from the same song sheet – except, unsurprisingly, SEC Chair Gary Gensler doesn’t want to hear it.

In a prepared statement, Gensler came out against the bill, saying it "would create new regulatory gaps and undermine decades of precedent regarding the oversight of investment contracts, putting investors and capital markets at immeasurable risk."

Meanwhile, several altcoins are refusing to cede the spotlight to ETH.

Bitensor saw its native TAO spike 11% following a rumor that Grayscale plans to create a trust vehicle tracking it. TAO is CoinGecko’s 42nd-largest token. It’s a decentralized AI project.

And you can be sure that there are some memecoins surging somewhere.

On Solana, Bonk gained 15%. Ethereum-run Pepe is up 8%.

And in one of the more noteworthy advances today, Turbo, a community built around AI and art, saw its TURBO token soar 56%, making it the biggest leaper among CoinGecko's Top 400 digital assets.

Following Nvidia’s blow-out earnings report yesterday, a handful of heavily traded AI-related coins enjoyed a nice bump but have since tumbled.

For example, Render (RNDR) edged toward $12 on Wednesday afternoon with expectations running hot that chipmaking revenue expectations would be exceeded – but when that happened RNDR promptly fell to roughly $10.

Near Protocol's NEAR generated hype when its co-founder spoke at an Nvidia conference earlier this year, as CoinDesk noted, and it is true NEAR did see a 2% gain around the time of the Nvidia release; but a quick check of NEAR shows it dead flat over 24 hours.

One of the largest of the so-called AI coins, Fetch.ai, with a $6 billion market cap, saw its native FET decline 5% in the past 24 hours, per CoinGecko. That was as of 9:27 a.m. (EST).

SingularityNET (AGIX) fell 5.5% in that same span.

The SEC's Ethereum decision could come within hours but we're closely watching Bitcoin suddenly barely clinging to $68,000.

BTC's failure to keep a grip on a $70K handle this week wouldn't seem all too shocking considering the speculative orgies involving a sizable swath of alternatives, whether memecoins, AI coins and, of course, Ethereum, and several related assets, including Lido Staked Ether and now even Ethererum Classic, which is up 19% this week.

The notion of imminent approval of spot ETH ETFs has QCP Capital forecasting a huge rally for the second-largest crypto, expected to jump 60% as investors warm to the new offerings.

Would this influx come at the expense of BTC? Indeed, says economist/gold bug Peter Schiff.

"Investors who decided to make an allocation to crypto won’t increase that allocation to buy ETH," Schiff said in a social media post. "Any money to buy new ETH ETFs most likely would come from existing BTC ETFs."

Longer-term, BTC is set up for an extended bull run, insists Tom Lee, a managing partner and head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors.

Lee, a widely followed crypto prognosticator, earlier this month told CNBC that BTC reaching $150K in 2024 remains his "base case" scenario.

The Fed's language on interest rate cuts seems “more dovish than where the market is,” Lee said. “We think Bitcoin’s still early in an upcycle."