Currently reconsidering the Winklevoss brothers' ETF proposal, the SEC has now received another approval request for a bitcoin ETF; investment manager VanEck has submitted a prospectus to the SEC for a bitcoin-related ETF; the fund differs from previous funds, with its investments based on derivatives of bitcoin; VanEck is seeking to list the fund on the Nasdaq and says it will also include conventional investments such as US Treasury bonds and cash for risk diversification. Source
Bitcoin's price has been gaining in recent days; CNBC reports on its new high of $3,586.23 on Friday; over the weekend it continued to gain, surpassing $4,000; with the new highs the cryptocurrency’s value has gained over 24% in the past week and tripled in value for the year; its split into bitcoin and bitcoin cash has been a lead catalyst for its recent price gains; an additional upgrade called “segregated witness” is also being supported. Source
Starting August 1 at about 8:20 AM EST, the bitcoin blockchain split, and there is a new set of tokens - bitcoin cash (BCC) - on the new blockchain; bitcoin's price dropped about 10% from $2,944 to $2,632 in about forty minutes, according to bitcoin trading platform OKCoin. Source (Chinese)