After the United States Department of Treasury purged Binance Holdings Ltd’s operations in the country, the pathway for spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) was clear. Around the same time, Grayscale Investments, a digital asset management company owned by Digital Currency Group (DCG), was preparing to update its application with the US SEC.  According to a memo from the US SEC, several of Grayscale’s top executives led by Chief Executive Officer Michael Sonnenshein met with the agency on November 20 to discuss the necessary changes needed on the original filing to ensure the approval of the application. Two days after the meeting, Grayscale Investments filed an updated application with the US SEC to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTC: GBTC) to a spot Bitcoin ETF.

Closer Look at the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust

Grayscale Investment is one of the early adopters of Bitcoin, whereby the GBTC was created on September 25, 2013, and incorporated under the OTC rules two years later. The GBTC, which currently tracks the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX), has a total assets under management (AUM) of about $23.3 billion, with about 692,370,100 outstanding shares. When the US SEC gets to approve Grayscale’s application for spot Bitcoin ETF, the company noted in the updated filing that the shares of the trust will be divided into 100 baskets, which consist of about 8.967 BTC for easier redemption.

With the updated application, Grayscale Investments noted that it will be working with the Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (NYSE: BK) as the transfer agent, while the Delaware Trust Company will be the official trustee and Coinbase Custody Trust will act as the custodian of the trust. Meanwhile, Grayscale noted that it intends to list its spot Bitcoin ETF on the NYSE Arca Inc.

The move by Grayscale to list its GBTC for public trading is expected to help improve Bitcoin liquidity as more traditional investors will be involved. Moreover, the company’s spot Bitcoin ETF will mean investors do not need to directly hold Bitcoin although the shares represent the flagship value. As a result, investors will not have to worry about the storage of the actual assets, thus reducing the technical risk involved in holding Bitcoin directly.

Market Implications

While the imminent approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States is expected to bring in more cash flow to the crypto market, some analysts have warned that the GBTC approval could mean more dumping to the secondary market. Nonetheless, the demand for the mother coin is expected to grow exponentially and over time surpass that of gold as more countries adopt it to hedge against rising inflation.

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Dogecoin DOGE/USD traded 1% lower over 24 hours at $0.1395 in the early hours of Tuesday morning as a key rival cryptocurrency saw a bullish signal.

DOGE was volatile at press time along with major coins as the global cryptocurrency market cap declined 0.3% to $1.87 trillion.

See Also: Best Crypto Debit Cards

The Doge Factors

• Rival meme coin Shiba Inu SHIB/USD was listed on Robinhood alongside three other cryptocurrencies early Tuesday. SHIB traded 16.5% higher at the time of writing.
• DOGE was among the most mentioned coins at press time, according to Cointrendz data. The three most mentioned coins were Bitcoin, Polygon, and XRP.
• The 24-hour trading volume for DOGE fell 29% to $1.3 billion at press time, according to CoinMarketCap data.
• Coinglass data showed that $7 million worth of DOGE futures were liquidated in the past 24 hours as the meme cryptocurrency fell in value.
• 
  

  Mr. Beast Owns Meme Phone Number

YouTuber Mr. Beast said on Twitter that he owns the phone number 69-420. Both numbers are often tweeted about by Tesla Inc TSLA CEO and DOGE bull Elon Musk. While 69 has sexual connotations, 420 is associated with cannabis culture.

I now own the phone number 69-420 lol

— MrBeast (@MrBeast) April 11, 2022

Dogecoin On The Web

Dogecoin co-creator Billy Markus advanced two reasons why cryptocurrencies are crashing currently. He said it could be due to the fact that people are “doing taxes” and the IRS only takes fiat or because of the usual reason: i don’t know (idk). 

crypto is either crashing because

1) people are doing taxes and realizing the IRS only takes fiat

2) the usual reason: idk lol ¯_(ツ)_/¯

— Shibetoshi Nakamoto (@BillyM2k) April 11, 2022

The Dogecoin Foundation shared a blog post by the developers of RadioDoge project which uses cheaply and widely available radio technology combined with Starlink satellite network to enable wide scale access to Dogecoin network for people outside the traditional internet infrastructure.

RadioDoge is still a largely volunteer-driven and privately financed/supported project, but Michi and Tim’s post makes clear why it is so close to our hearts and fits well within our vision of what Dogecoin can enable.

— Dogecoin Foundation (@DogecoinFdn) April 11, 2022

Read Next: ‘It’s Not The Party, It’s The System:’ Jack Dorsey Blasts Democrats, Republicans For Failing The Public

According to this rumor, a 25-year-old woman named Jenifer Garcia forced a Dogecoin millionaire to have sex with her in an attempt to conceive.

This did not really happen. Here’s more: https://t.co/sRXHfjhFrU— snopes.com (@snopes) March 26, 2022

(SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user’s social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)

Shiba Inu’s valuation has dropped by more than 44% in the month of November. However, optimism is seldom in shortage in the community. A major announcement was recently made public, one which has once again grabbed the attention of the community.

With the crypto’s price falling under $0.00004, the meme token’s latest development was rather interesting in terms of outlaying its long-term presence in the crypto-industry.

Shiba Inu cuddling into the heart of gaming?

Shytoshi Kusama, a popular Shiba Inu proponent, announced on Medium that the development team has entered a partnership with William David Volk to design and develop a Shiba-backed video game. Volk is a pioneer in the gaming industry. The developer is former VP of Technology at Activision Studios and he is co-responsible for iWack, the first-ever iPhone game launched.

Additionally, Volk also brings 36 years of experience with him. Needless to say, that is top brass being added to potential game development.

The Medium post mentioned that the game will initially not be blockchain-based. The blockchain version will be built on it, using Shiba Inu’s decentralized network. Now, this is where it gets interesting.

Kusama went on to mention that the long-term objective of the blockchain game would be to incorporate Shiba Inu in the metaverse universe. In addition to that, the Team Lead mentioned that their approach will be radically different from Facebook’s.

A success story in the making?

Shiba Inu is pulling a rabbit out of its hat at every step of its development. It has a Decentralized Exchange, is used by some platforms as a payment token, and now, is welcoming an eventual switch to being accessible in the Metaverse and the blockchain gaming industry.

The lucrative nature of blockchain gaming has been widely covered already in 2021. In fact, according to DappRadar, more than 1.4 million Unique Address Wallets log into blockchain games on a day-to-day basis. That level of activity might be soon witnessed on Metaverse chains and the valuation rise of MANA, ENJ tokens are a prime example.

With the kind of popularity Shiba Inu has behind its token, it is difficult to root against its success. However, it might still have a long way to go.

Github repository truth and the eventual bearish market

At press time, Shiba Inu had fewer active repositories than any other major project. It is borderline embarrassing as the website only highlights 157. In comparison, fellow meme coin DOGE has over 1400 and Bitcoin has 52000. It is fair to state then that the development side of things is still pretty thin.

Now, psychologically, Shiba Inu has also risen due to an aggressive positive sentiment. This sentiment is largely based on the collective bullish nature of Bitcoin, Ethereum in 2021. Shiba Inu, regardless of a positive community, will possibly not rally if there is a liquidity exit from the likes of BTC, ETH, and other top assets.

If the bear market settles in, investors may not even wait that long for Metaverse proficiency. Speculators can bet their house that functionality will not be immediately feasible for Shiba Inu in virtual reality.

Shiba Inu may have chewed more than it can swallow. But, let’s be honest, we have seen stranger things in this industry. Hence, who knows, Shiba Inu might actually pull it off in 2022.

After having jumped more than enough sharks to fill all the aquariums in the world, I no longer follow The Walking Dead television show. However, once memorable scene involving a set of the program’s protagonists had me thinking about Dogecoin (CCC:DOGE-USD), the lovable though controversial canine-inspired cryptocurrency meme.

Source: Shutterstock

As a group of motorcycle gang members demanded that the onscreen heroes turn over their firearms, the leader turned to one of the stubbornly reluctant characters with a classic line (though modified for language): “If you have to eat [brown stuff], best not to nibble. Bite, chew, swallow, repeat. It goes quicker.”

It certainly does, not that I know from personal experience, but the man sounded very logical. And logic is what you must apply when dealing with the seemingly irrational Dogecoin.

As you may know from my prior takes on InvestorPlace and other publications, I’ve not been too kind on the meme coin. Yet as enthusiasm for the benchmark cryptos continued to rise to insane valuations, I have started to appreciate why Dogecoin gets the adoration that it does. For one thing, it’s unpretentious and that could go a long way.

Too many times, I see blockchain being proposed as the answer to many of our social ills, such as cancer. No, seriously, more than one person has made the argument that the blockchain can cure this dreaded disease.

To be fair, I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that a decentralized distributed ledger can literally cure cancer. Rather, through an immutable, transparent and trustless system, global communities at large can foster efficient funding for cancer research. As well, the blockchain can facilitate a financial incentive for pharmaceutical companies to cure the disease rather than to manage it.

Largely, you’re not going to find grandiose statements like the above for Dogecoin – and thank goodness for that!

Dogecoin and the Greater Fool

What we have with this most popular of meme coins is perhaps a perfect manifestation of the greater fool theory. Fundamentals? There are not fundamentals, not unless you consider a crypto based off a joke as being functionally pertinent to Dogecoin.

And in some ways, there are neither any technicals. Sure, technical analysis is likely the best way to approach Dogecoin. But if you look at a long-term chart of DOGE (on a logarithmic scale so you can see the smaller-denomination-based movements), many of the swings in either direction appear wild and random.

Ultimately, you’re hoping that if you buy Dogecoin today, somebody else will buy it at a higher price tomorrow. In the end, is that such a bad idea?

Here’s why I bring up the TWD quote. Per Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) fame – or infamy depending on your perspective – Bitcoin (CCC:BTC-USD) is fundamentally worthless. Despite being an avid supporter of cryptos all these years, it’s hard to disagree, at least to some extent. After all, Bitcoin isn’t tied to a productive enterprise. It doesn’t employ people, nor does it generate earnings and dividends.

Therefore, if you found yourself in an apocalyptic scenario where motorcycle gangs forced you to buy a crypto of your choice, you might as well go with Dogecoin.

While Bitcoin proponents argue all day about the underlying blockchain technology, the reality is that this platform isn’t proprietary. Sure, specific blockchain protocols may be but the concept of decentralized distributed ledgers is not. Therefore, anyone can make their own blockchain network – and many do just that.

Therefore, rather than nibbling on Bitcoin (because at $60,000, all most people can do is nibble), why not take huge bites out of Dogecoin? With nothing backing neither coin except the belief that it can move higher still, the relative risk-reward profile might favor DOGE.

A Dangerous Way to Live

Another factor that supports the meme is the Dogecoin community. I can’t say for sure what its main motivation is. But as I mentioned, it lacks pretention. And that could be very appealing for younger investors, who look for authenticity in their purchasing decisions.

What could be more authentic than a crypto project whose sole purpose is to make its stakeholders money?

Nevertheless, I don’t want to mislead any investors. Dogecoin is insanely risky. The only reason I own some units was because I probably bought them as a joke (I actually don’t remember the real reason why). It’s a mistake that panned out very well but usually, such errors end in tears.

But the thing is, you can suffer from greater tears going all-in on Bitcoin. Therefore, a smaller nominal wager in Dogecoin makes sense due to its higher percentage-based reward profile, that is if you were going to invest in cryptos anyways.

On the date of publication, Josh Enomoto held a LONG position in DOGE and BTC. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.

A former senior business analyst for Sony Electronics, Josh Enomoto has helped broker major contracts with Fortune Global 500 companies. Over the past several years, he has delivered unique, critical insights for the investment markets, as well as various other industries including legal, construction management, and healthcare.