BitcoinBTC and other major cryptocurrencies, including ethereum and Ripple’s XRPXRP, have been rocked by the Federal Reserve this year—creating what could become a bitcoin price nightmare.
The bitcoin price, up almost 70% so far this year, helped by BlackRockBLK, the world’s largest fund manager that looks after around $10 trillion worth of assets, driving a surge of Wall Street bitcoin and crypto interest.
Now, a former BlackRock managing director has predicted it’s only a matter of months until the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approves a long-awaited bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF), giving funds that manage $17.7 trillion worth of assets the green light.
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“The SEC will probably approve [all spot bitcoin ETF applications] at the same time; I don’t think they want to give anybody first mover advantage,” former BlackRock managing director Steven Schoenfield said this week at a London conference, it was reported by Decrypt.
Schoenfield gave the SEC “three to six months” until it approves a bitcoin spot ETF.
Last month, $1.5 trillion manager Franklin Templeton filed with the SEC for a bitcoin spot ETF, joining a flurry of applications that was kicked off by the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock in June and includes Wall Street giants Fidelity, Invesco Galaxy, WisdomTree.
Schoenfield pointed to a recent decision by the SEC to delay until early next year at the latest decisions on a handful of prominent bitcoin spot ETF applications as accelerating the process.
“Instead of completely rejecting the whole list, they’ve asked for comments, which is a marginal but significant improvement in the dialogue,” Shoenfield said.
Meanwhile, the SEC has been instructed by U.S. lawmakers to reexamine crypto asset manager Greyscale’s application to convert its flagship bitcoin trust to a fully-fledged bitcoin spot ETF. “[The SEC is] most likely going to have to allow the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust to be converted into an ETF,” Schoenfield said.
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The bitcoin price and wider crypto market have, however, lost ground since surging higher in the aftermath of BlackRock’s landmark bitcoin spot ETF filing.
“The entire crypto market appears to be holding its breath while it waits for the U.S. SEC to begin approving bitcoin spot ETFs,” Swarm Markets co-founder Timo Lehes said in emailed comments.
“But in the meantime it would appear asset managers are already beginning to adapt their offerings depending on what happens next in the market. There is evidently an increasing move from smaller providers such as Valkyrie and VanEck to diversify out of bitcoin and into ethereum. This will give them an added selling point once the big institutional players are unleashed onto the bitcoin ETF market.”
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