Episode 19: Ethereum ETF approved as crypto becomes a political battleground

In this week’s podcast, Imran Lakha and David Brickell discuss the swift policy shifts we have been seeing around crypto regulation in the US fuelled by Donald Trump embracing crypto in his campaign.

The Biden administration has likely realised that they have no choice but to lighten up regulation to appeal to the 50 million or so US voters who use cryptocurrencies. Overall the landscape looks ripe for the start of a new ALT season, with ETH leading the way as we await the start of spot ETF trading in the months ahead. Imran explains what the moves in crypto vol and skew are saying about the options market’s take on the recent price action with a flippening in longer dated call skew towards ETH. David is as bullish as ever given recent regulatory moves and struggles to see a material downside scenario in the near term.

The following topics is covered:

0:00 – Introduction
1:05 – Ethereum ETF approval & price action
3:27 – Crypto the new swing state? The political shift for crypto
7:30 – Political motivations for crypto
10:06 – Trump moving the market with his tweets?
12:34 – Money to rotate back in ETH and accelerating
13:12 – The impact of Mt Gox reimbursement
15:20 – How to trade the current BTC momentum
18:00 – Volatility update from Imran
21:59 – Thoughts on the Vol update
25:30 – How Imran is positioned for BTC & ETH
27:01 – Short update on the macro from David
28:28 – Altseason incoming?
29:42 – Staking not included in the ETH ETF’s
34:02 – Key-takeaways