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⌐◪-◪ → Hong Kong has just approved several spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs, potentially unlocking up to $25 billion in fresh capital for the crypto sector. For context, the largest BTC ETF is Grayscale, with $24.33 billion in assets under management (AUM).

This move reinforces Hong Kong's status as an international financial center and a hub for digital assets, contrasting with mainland China's ongoing crackdown on cryptocurrency trading and mining.

Particularly notable is the approval of the spot Ether ETF, a development not yet mirrored in the U.S., thanks to the SEC's countless delays.

Hopefully, this decision will motivate the SEC to expedite the approval of an ETH ETF, to prevent the U.S. from falling behind in the rapidly evolving digital assets and crypto market.

This is pretty bullish news combined with the halving in 4 days.

⌐◪-◪ → Germany’s largest federal bank, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW), plans to offer crypto custody services with Bitpanda to meet increasing client demand.

The service will focus on institutional and corporate clients and ensure the highest security standards and regulatory compliance.

Their COO says, "The demand from our corporate customers for digital assets is increasing, and we are convinced that crypto assets will establish themselves as a building block for further business models”.

It feels like an increasing number of large corporations want to not only hold crypto on their balance sheets as an anti-inflationary hedge but also as a tool for new product/service offerings.

This bull cycle is about to get wild.

Gradually then suddenly — corps, banks, states, and nations.

⌐◪-◪ → Vitalik just transferred 100 ETH to Railgun, a privacy-preserving DeFi protocol.

Railgun is attempting to be a more compliant version of the infamous money mixer, Tornado Cash — whose founders are on trial.

Railgun touts the addition of "privacy pools," a compliance mechanism that uses zero-knowledge proofs to thwart bad actors and criminals.

Privacy pools were originally proposed by Vitalik in a research paper from September 2023, co-authored with other notable Ethereum developers.

Despite Railgun's compliance efforts, Truth Labs claims the protocol has been utilized by various criminal groups, including the North Korean hacker group Lazarus.

Whether Railgun works or not — I am all for privacy. It’s a fundamental human right, and Vitalik agrees.

He tweeted “Privacy is normal” 1 hour ago. I can’t blame him, I wouldn’t want the entire world watching my every move (transaction), especially when it risks moving entire markets.

Meanwhile, $RAIL just pumped 220%. The privacy narrative finally paying off — thnx Vitalik.

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