Ether is currently leading the market, hitting a 22-month high of $3125 early Monday morning, while BTC’s movements have slowed. Last week, two trends fueled the crypto industry: AI tokens and USDe, a new “synthetic dollar” promising 27% yield with a unique peg stability mechanism.

Bitcoin’s market cap surpassed $1tn last week for the first time since November 2021 as prices rose above $52k. In other news, Franklin Templeton applied for a spot ETH ETF, U.S. CPI came in above expectations and a coalition of banks called the SEC to change its crypto guidance.

Bitcoin is currently trading above $48K, a total recovery of its post-ETF losses. In other news, Solana suffered a major five-hour outage, Ethereum developers set a target date for a major upgrade, Citrea launched the first ZK rollup on Bitcoin.

BTC was volatile after the U.S. Fed pushed against market expectations for March rate cuts. In other news, bankrupt FTX and Celsius will start to repay creditors, GBTC outflows continued to slow, and Solana DEX aggregator Jupiter completed one of the largest airdrops ever.

BTC prices rebounded over the weekend, stabilizing around $42k after dropping to their lowest levels since early December. In other news, the U.S. SEC delayed its decision on BlackRock’s ETH ETF until March, Solana launched token extensions, and U.S. GDP surprised on the upside.

BTC continues to trade more than 10% below its pre-ETF price level, falling below $41K in the early hours on Monday amid continued outflows from Grayscale’s GBTC fund.

This week we examine the state of ETH, including a look at how volumes and derivatives have fared in the wake of last week’s BTC ETFs going live.

BTC saw strong volatility over the week following the landmark approval of several spot ETFs in the U.S. Despite hopes that the rally would continue, BTC closed the week in the red dipping to $42.6k from a high of $48.7k. ETH ended up being the surprise winner, closing Sunday up 11% as traders anticipate a spot ETH ETF could be next in line.