The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has given the green light to the first leveraged Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) on Friday. The Volatility Shares 2x Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITX) is poised to make its debut on the Chicago Board Options (CBOE) BZX Exchange on June 27.

The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), a Bitcoin futures fund, has seen a dramatic uptick in capital inflows on June 26, seeing the most significant weekly inflow in a year at $65.3 million, pushing its assets above $1 billion.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has urged nations worldwide to enforce the "Travel Rule” to combat money laundering and terrorism financing with the use of cryptocurrencies.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• SEC Approves First Leveraged Bitcoin Futures ETF
• BITO Sees Record Yearly Inflows of $65.3 Million in a Week
• FATF Urges Nations to Enforce Crypto Travel Rule
• Stablecoin Trading Volume Drops to New Yearly Lows

SEC Approves First Leveraged Bitcoin Futures ETF

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gave the green light to the first leveraged Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) on June 23. The Volatility Shares 2x Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITX) is poised to make its debut on the Chicago Board Options (CBOE) BZX Exchange on June 27.

The SEC’s filing details that BITX aspires to yield results equating to double the return of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Bitcoin Futures Daily Roll Index. BITX is notably the first leveraged Bitcoin ETF on the market.

Bitcoin ETFs have so far been typically futures-based, with a spot Bitcoin ETF not having yet been approved in the United States. BITX, a leveraged ETF, is a type of product that uses e financial tools such as debt or derivatives – in this case Bitcoin futures contracts – as leverage.

The approval of BITX comes at a time in which the SEC sued two of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance and Coinbase, over alleged securities law violations, and in which financial giants including BlackRock and Invesco filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF.

BITO Sees Record Yearly Inflows of $65.3 Million in a Week

The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), a Bitcoin futures fund, has seen a dramatic uptick in capital inflows on June 26, seeing the most significant weekly inflow in a year at $65.3 million, pushing its assets above $1 billion.

As the first Bitcoin-associated ETF in the U.S., BITO holds significant appeal to institutional investors. According to Eric Blachunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, BITO’s performance has “tracked Bitcoin almost flawlessly,” trailing spot prices by 1.05% annually.

With a fee of 0.95%, the fund has gained 59.6% since 2023 began, according to ProShares. Interest in Bitcoin derivatives surged after BlackRock filed for its spot Bitcoin ETF on June 15, with data showing Bitcoin futures open interest surged around 30% since then

FATF Urges Nations to Enforce Crypto Travel Rule

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has urged nations worldwide to enforce the "Travel Rule” to combat money laundering and terrorism financing with the use of cryptocurrencies.

The United Nations entity, tasked with battling financial crimes, has noted that “many” member states have so far failed to implement the Travel Rule, pointing out that over half of the respondents in a survey indicated they had not made any progress toward implementing the rule.

The Travel Rule is a crucial FATF requirement devised to prevent funds from being funneled to sanctioned individuals or entities. The organization urged nations to apply anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing safeguard to crypto activities, in a bid to stop criminals from capitalizing on "significant loopholes" left unprotected by regulatory measures.

Designed to unmask the anonymity of illicit cryptocurrency transactions, the FATF Travel Rule was introduced in June 2019 and last updated in June 2022. The FATF plans to release a report this week urging member nations to adopt its recommendations to plug the gaps that criminals are currently exploiting.

Emerging risk areas such as stablecoins, decentralized finance, nonfungible tokens, and peer-to-peer transactions, all of which are ripe for illicit activities, will also be covered in the forthcoming report.

Stablecoin Trading Volume Drops to New Yearly Lows

In May, the trading volumes of stablecoins witnessed a 10% decrease, plunging to $414 billion and marking the lowest volume since December 2022. The trading volume of leading stablecoin USDT suffered a significant dip of 29.9%, amounting to $293 billion. This downturn signifies the lowest trading activity for USDT since January 2020.

May also saw the dominance of USDT in trading volume shrink for the second month running, settling at 76.9%. As of June 19, USDT's market share dominance seems set to reach its lowest level since January 2023, currently sitting at 72.4%.

Dig deeper into the stablecoin sector through CCData’s latest Stablecoins & CBDCs report

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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