February 5. BTC fell below $65,000. $860 million liquidated in 24 hours. The Fear and Greed Index dropped into "Extreme Fear."
On the same day, Bitwise submitted the S-1 filing for the first Uniswap spot ETF to the SEC.
Let me put these two things together: the market is experiencing one of the bloodiest sell-offs since 2024, and an asset management company chose to apply for an ETF for DeFi tokens at this moment.
Not BTC. Not ETH. It's UNI—a governance token for a decentralized exchange. Current price $3.21, 24-hour decline 13.76%.
Coinbase has been designated as the custodian. This means an institutional-level compliance framework.
This is not a random timing choice.
The logic of Bitwise might be: submit during market panic, and the market may recover during the approval period. By the time the ETF is approved, UNI may have already rebounded from the bottom. Apply first, take a position.
On a deeper level: If UNI can be ETF-ified, what about other DeFi tokens? AAVE? COMP? This could be the beginning of a category.
Will the SEC approve? It's hard to say right now. But the application itself is a signal - someone is betting on the compliance path of DeFi.
When everyone is selling, there are always some who are positioning for the next cycle.
blackrock !!! ymf!!!
