First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Regains $41K in End of Week Rally

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Crypto prices ticked upward during the European morning following a sedate Asian session. Bitcoin reached $41,250 at around 11:45 UTC to show gains of about 2.6% in the last 24 hours, while the CoinDesk 20 Index, a liquid index that tracks the highest tokens by capitalization, was up about 1.6%. Solana's SOL and Avalanche's AVAX were among those leading the gains, showing green candles to the tune of 3.7% and 5.7% respectively. Nonetheless, the crypto market remains around 14% down on its highs immediately following the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. earlier this month.

ARK Invest has sold a total of 2,226,191 shares of the ProShares Bitcoin Trust ETF since Jan. 19, worth around $42.8 million at Thursday's closing price of $19.22, from its Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW). Meanwhile, it has bought 1,563,619 shares in the ARK 21 Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB), worth approximately $62.3 million. ARK held BITO as a short-term play having offloaded its shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) late last year, in anticipation of the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S., with plans to swap BITO for a spot bitcoin ETF once the approval came. ARKW now holds $91.4 million of ARKB, constituting a 5.98% weighting of the fund's total value. Its BITO shares now number just 366,128 at a value of $7 million, a 0.46% weighting.

Developers behind the Celo blockchain have been evaluating technical proposals from teams who might provide technology as the project migrates to become a new layer-2 network atop Ethereum, a search which appears to be reaching a conclusion. In a blog post on Thursday, Tim Moreton, CEO of cLabs, the leading developer behind Celo, wrote that "as we wrap up the technical evaluations, we’re moving to evaluating the non-technical dimensions described in the framework." Some of the biggest players in the blockchain industry were vying for the mandate: Optimism, Polygon, zkSync and Arbitrum. Moreton didn't provide a specific timeline for when a final recommendation might come about, writing, "We're working as fast as we can to get a comprehensive proposal that we feel confident proposing."