Bitcoin (BITCOMP) reached a high of $66,727 late in the day on 21 October, but has since fallen away to trade back around the $62,000 level. 

The price spike came amid the launch of the high-profile ProShares BTC futures ETF (BITO), which underlined to markets the willingness of traditional finance to enter the crypto market.

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Ether meanwhile experienced similar momentum through the course of the week, and came within a whisker of reaching an all-time high, hitting $4,332 on the eToro platform on Thursday. 

ETH previously reached an ATH of $4,340 on May 12th of this year. The token has moved down over the weekend but continues to trade in the $4,100 range (ETH-X).

Shiba Inu hits record highs on Musk puppy photo

Shiba Inu coin (SHIB-X) reached its own new ATH on Sunday in the wake of tweets from Tesla boss Elon Musk.

The token, which was launched by anonymous creator ‘Ryoshi’ in 2020, soared to 43.3916 Shiba (in millions on the eToro platform), which is a “lot” of one million Shiba Inu units.  in early Sunday morning trading, as Elon Musk tweeted a photo of his eponymous shiba inu puppy.

The Tesla (TSLA) chief then clarified that he does not hold any of the token, which has since sent its price tumbling back down. Musk commented when asked if he held SHIB:

“Out of curiosity, I acquired some ascii hash strings called “Bitcoin, Ethereum & Doge”. That’s it. As I’ve said before, don’t bet the farm on crypto! True value is building products & providing services to your fellow human beings, not money in any form.”

At the time of writing the token is trading around 38.4444. It has soared in value since September when it traded around 7.0000 (million). Its previous ATH came on 10 May when it reached 34.5770.

Second bitcoin ETF quietly launches

Valkryie Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BTF) launched on Friday garnering less attention than the ProShares offering.

Trading under the ticker BTF - the ETF similarly trades bitcoin futures and started trading at $25 a share. In its first session the ETF traded around 3.1 million shares.

The ETF’s shares immediately lost ground however as BTC retreated from its ATH in midweek. 

While less attention was paid to the second BTC ETF launch in a week, it caps a growing movement of financial institutions offering tradable BTC instruments. 

The fanfare has nudged other institutions such as Grayscale to consider converting trusts into ETF structures, while major financial institutions continue to ponder joining the cryptoasset market with their own products.   

Firefighters put bitcoin in pension fund

The Houston Firefighters’ Relief and Retirement Fund (HFRRF) has made bitcoin and ether purchases worth around $25 million.

It marks the first instance of a public pension fund in the US purchasing cryptoassets, according to the fund’s own announcement. 

Despite splitting the investment between BTC and ETH, no clarification was made of how much each. The fund invested in the cryptoassets through investment firm NYDIG.

The fund has more than 6,600 active and retired firefighters as members. Those members contribute around 9% of their annual gross salaries into the fund, with the City of Houston contributing double that amount.

Commenting on the announcement, Ajit Singh, HFRRF's Chief Investment Officer says: "We are excited to take this first step forward into the world of digital assets. This investment expresses our belief in the disruptive potential of distributed ledger technology for the development and democratization of value accumulation through disintermediation."