SEC Drops Ether Probe, Still Wants Billions from Ripple: Hodler's Digest

The SEC is dropping its investigation into whether Ether is a security. This comes after Consensys, an Ethereum developer, requested the SEC to end its investigation in June following the approval of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for Ether in May. Meanwhile, the SEC is still pushing for billions in penalties from Ripple, rejecting the company's request for a reduced penalty. The SEC argues that Ripple's proposed $10 million penalty is insufficient compared to the $876.3 million it is seeking. The SEC's proposed penalties for Ripple total nearly $2 billion, including prejudgment interest, civil penalty, and disgorgement. This week also saw Kraken recover $3 million from CertiK, ending a bug bounty saga that involved accusations of malicious intent and threats. Crypto analysts predict that Ether could reach $10,000, a 194% increase from current levels, due to factors like the upcoming Ether ETF and a significant drop in Ether supply on exchanges. Bitwise, an asset management firm, has updated its spot Ether ETF filing, revealing that Pantera Capital is interested in investing up to $100 million in the fund. This is part of the approval process before spot Ether ETFs can be publicly traded, an event that SEC Chair Gary Gensler believes will happen sometime this summer. Bernstein analysts predict Bitcoin could reach nearly $200,000 by the end of 2025, following strong inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs. The analysts expect spot Bitcoin ETFs to represent around 7% of the total circulating Bitcoin supply by the end of 2025.