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Think Ethereum’s ETH is Dead? Surging Metrics Show Otherwise

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The overwhelming chatter on social media, especially Crypto Twitter is that Ethereum’s ether (ETH) is dead, a narrowly moving token.

Still, the market is betting on higher ETH prices as traders pile into derivatives tied to the cryptocurrency alongside a boom in Ethereum’s blob usage.

Cumulative open interest in perpetual and standard futures contracts has surged to a record 6.32 million ETH, worth over $27 billion, registering a 17% month-to-date gain, according to data source CoinGlass. An uptick in open interest alongside a price is said to validate an uptrend, and ether’s price has surged 35% to $3,400 this month, matching the industry leader’s bitcoin’s price gain.

According to data source Velo, the gap between three-month ETH futures and spot prices, the so-called premium, has expanded to an annualized 16% on offshore exchanges Binance, OKX and Deribit. Meanwhile, the front-month premium on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has risen to 14%.

That’s noteworthy because an elevated premium could generate greater interest in cash and carry trades used to capture the price differential between the two markets, leading to increased inflows into the U.S.-listed spot ETH ETFs. The strategy comprises a long position in the spot ETF with a simultaneous short in the CME futures.

Activity in the ether options market listed on Deribit is also picking up, with over 2 million contracts active or open at press time, the highest since late June. In notional terms, the open interest stands at $7.33 billion, according to Deribit Metrics.

The price uptick has further driven up the value of assets locked on Ethereum-based applications to $65 billion as of Wednesday, a figure last seen in May 2022.

A major chunk of those, however, are held on three applications. Liquid staking protocol Lido holds over $32 billion in locked ether, Aave, a lending protocol, holds $26 billion in various assets, and restaking platform EigenLayer holds $14 billion.

Data shows a bump in revenue, fees, new wallets and on-chain volumes on Ethereum, with the past month showing elevated levels of activity compared to the period from May to September. (The metrics are no where close to an year-to-date peak seen in March, when interest around ETH ETFs was at a high.)

The Solana network and its applications continue to dominate DeFi activity, however, due to its broader retail appeal and cheap fees.

Stablecoin data further shows that Ethereum has more USDT hosted than Tron, with $60.3 billion on Ethereum compared to $57.94 billion on Tron, for the first time since June 2022.

Among sentiment factors, president-elect Donald Trump’s victory has brought back hopes of a decentralized finance (DeFi) bull market, at least among some investors, and with it demand for ETH.

The campaign indicated a move toward reducing the regulatory burden on crypto, potentially making it easier for DeFi platforms to operate within the U.S — a promise that has spurred growth in ETH and major DeFi tokens since early November.

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Canary Capital Files for Tron ETF With Staking Capabilities

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Canary Capital is looking to launch an exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking the price of Tron’s native token, TRX, according to a filing.

The hedge fund submitted a Form S-1 for the Canary Staked TRX ETF with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday. As the name suggests, the fund — if approved — would stake portions of its holdings.

This would be done through third-party providers, with BitGo acting as custodian for the assets. The fund would track TRX’s spot price using CoinDesk Indices calculations.

A proposed ticker as well as the management fee for the product have not been shared yet.

Issuers had initially filed applications for spot ethereum (ETH) ETFs with the staking feature included but removed them in an amended filing later in order to receive approval from the SEC on their proposals.

While the SEC under former Chair Gary Gensler was strictly against staking, issuers have grown more hopeful that they will be able to add the feature to their spot ether funds, among others, with the appointment of crypto-friendly Chair Paul Atkins.

A decision on a February request from Grayscale to allow staking in the Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHE) and the Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust ETF (ETH) was postponed by the regulator just a few days ago.

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Feds Mistakenly Order Estonian HashFlare Fraudsters to Self-Deport Ahead of Sentencing

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Just four months ahead of their criminal sentencing for operating a $577 million cryptocurrency mining Ponzi scheme, the two Estonian founders of HashFlare were seemingly mistakenly ordered to self-deport by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — an instruction that directly contradicted a court order for the men to remain in Washington state until they are sentenced in August.

In a joint letter to the court last week, lawyers for Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin told District Judge Robert Lasnik of the Western District of Washington that both men had received “disturbing communications” from DHS ordering them to leave the country immediately.

“It is time for you to leave the United States,” an email to Potapenko and Turogin dated April 11 read. “DHS is terminating your parole. Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”

The email, included with the letter filed last week, threatened both men with “criminal prosecution, civil fines, and penalties and any other lawful options available to the federal government” if they stayed in the country. It resembles emails that undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike have received over the past few days.

Ironically, Potapenko and Turogin are not in the U.S. of their own volition — they were extradited from their native Estonia at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice in 2022 on an 18-count indictment tied to their HashFlare scheme. Though they initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, in February they both pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and agreed to forfeit over $400 million in assets. They have both been in the Seattle area on bond since last July.

“Although there is nothing Ivan and Sergei would want more than to immediately go home, they understood that they are also under Court order to remain in King County,” wrote Mark Bini, a partner at Reed Smith LLP and lead counsel for Potenko, wrote in the pair’s joint letter to the court. Bini did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.

In his letter, Bini said DHS’s emails had caused both Potapenko and Turogin «significant anxiety.”

“We and our clients have all seen recent news. Immigration authorities make mistakes, and individuals who should not be in custody end up in custody, sometimes even deported to places where they should not be deported,” Bini wrote.

Six days after Bini’s letter to the judge, the DOJ filed its own letter with the court saying that prosecutors had coordinated with DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division and secured a year-long deferral to the self-deportation order.

“This should provide ample time for the sentencing to take place,” the prosecution’s letter said.

DHS did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.

Potapenko and Turogin are slated to be sentenced on August 14 in Seattle. Their lawyers have said that they will request to be sentenced to time served, meaning no additional time in prison, and to be sent home to Estonia “immediately.”

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CoinDesk Weekly Recap: EigenLayer, Kraken, Coinbase, AWS

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Following last week’s tariff-caused drama, this was a relatively quiet week in crypto. Bitcoin remained stable around $84k. The CoinDesk 20, which tracks about 80% of the market, was up about 4% in the last seven days — i.e. nothing historic.

Still, plenty happened. On Tuesday, much of crypto went offline because of a tech issue at AWS, showing how the decentralized economy isn’t always that decentralized. Shaurya Malwa reported the news early. Bitcoin and other major cryptos slipped on bad news for Nvidia, Omkar Godbole reported.

Mantra, a project focused on real world assets, lost 90% of its value. Explanations varied (the company said it was due to “force liquidations” exchanges).

Meanwhile, EigenLayer, a restaking leader, rolled out a “slashing” feature meant to address security concerns (Sam Kessler reported). OKX, a major exchange, announced plans to set up in California following a $500 million settlement with the SEC over claims it operated previously in the U.S. without a money transmitter license. Cheyenne Ligon had that story.

In less good news, Kraken laid off “hundreds” of staff ahead of an expected IPO. And Coinbase became embroiled in a “front running controversy” linked to a curiously named token on its Base L2. Privacy advocates reacted with alarm to rumors that Binance was about to delist Zcash following a long decline in the value of privacy coins.

In D.C. news, Jesse Hamilton reported on a new wave of crypto lobbyists flooding the capital. Some asked if there are now too many trade groups and whether they really all could be effective.

Friends With Benefits, a buzzy social club for creative technologists, launched a new program to build Web3 products for music, film, publishing and other fun activities. (I wrote that one.)

Of course, there was plenty happening in the economy and markets (Trump’s disgust for Fed chair Powell fed into the unease). But, in crypto, it was pretty much business as usual. Fortunes won, fortunes lost, fortunes deferred.

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