ETH ETF Approval; Cooler U.S. Inflation Data

Crypto News:

Ether ETFs Should Be Fully Approved by September, Says SEC Chair Gensler

The final approvals for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) trading Ethereum's ether (ETH) should be finished this summer, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler told senators in a budget hearing on Thursday. The agency had previously granted the initial round of applications but he said the final registration requirements – filings known as S-1s – are now being handled at the "staff level." Once those filings are approved, the new ETFs can be listed, opening the wider markets to easy-to-trade funds that hold actual ether, much like the earlier establishment of bitcoin spot ETFs that hold (BTC). The SEC had initially blocked the effort for bitcoin ETFs until a federal court ruled the agency was mishandling the matter, and Gensler has said the SEC has since been following that decision and allowing them.

DeFi Giant Curve Roiled as Founder's Loans Get Liquidated; CRV Slides 30%

Lending protocol Curve's CRV token plunged Thursday as loans tied to company founder Michael Egorov automatically liquidated, leading to a burst of selling. Data tracked by blockchain analytics firms Lookonchain and Arkham show Egorov's addresses have taken out a cumulative loan of nearly $100 million worth of stablecoins, mostly crvUSD, against $140 million in CRV collateral. The liquidation of such a large position started to put pressure on other DeFi protocols as CRV is used as a trading pair and ballast in trading pools across the ecosystem. This is the second time Egorov's borrowed positions have created ripples in the crypto market. In 2023, an exploit of several Curve lending pools caused CRV prices to suddenly dump – putting over $100 million at risk of being liquidated.

Global News:

Wall Street notches record closing highs on cooler inflation data

The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 recorded their fourth consecutive record closing highs on Thursday and U.S. Treasury yields touched their lowest levels since early April as investors reconciled cooler-than-expected inflation data with tempered rate-cut expectations from the Federal Reserve. Expectations that the U.S. central bank could implement its first rate cut as soon as September are on the rise, financial markets now see a 60.5% likelihood of a 25-basis-point reduction to the Fed funds target rate in September, according to CME's FedWatch tool.

UK GDP flatlines as PM Sunak pins election campaign on economy

U.K. economic growth ground to a halt in April, according to flash figures published on Wednesday, stalling the muted rebound from last year’s recession mere weeks ahead of a national election. The U.K. had already eked out moderate growth in each of the first three months of the year, leading to an exit from a shallow recession for the first quarter as a whole. The fresh economic data could serve as political ammunition as the country heads for a general election in just over three weeks. The economic record of the incumbent Conservative Party and its rival Labour’s proposed tax and spend plans are key battlegrounds of the campaign. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has highlighted the recent fall in U.K. inflation in speeches.

Local News:

Weak peso expected to inflate gov’t debt

The country’s foreign debt is expected to increase further as higher import costs—exacerbated by the weak peso—may offset the growth in export receipts. The trade gap further ballooned to $ 4.76 billion in April from the $3.44 billion recorded in the previous month. In May, the peso weakened to the 58 to a dollar level for the first time in two years. Data from the Bureau of the Treasury showed outstanding debt grew by 0.61 percent to P15.02 trillion at end-April from P14.93 trillion at end-March.As of the first quarter, the government debt’s share in the gross domestic product (GDP) stood at 60.2 percent, lower than 61.1 percent a year ago. This was above the government’s debt-to-GDP ratio target of 55.9 percent by 2028.