The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will register the first spot Bitcoin ETF within three to six months. This opinion was expressed by former BlackRock managing director Stephen Schonfield, Decrypt reports.
He made his prediction during a panel discussion at the CCData Digital Assets Summit in London with the participation of another ex-BlackRock director, Martin Brandall.
The latter suggested that the SEC will likely simultaneously “give the green light” to all applications to launch exchange-traded funds based on the first cryptocurrency.
“I don’t think they want to give anyone the first mover advantage,” Brandall said.
According to Schonfield, a good sign was that the Commission did not reject the entire list of applications, but rather sought comments. He called it a “significant improvement in dialogue.”
“There is also Grayscale’s lawsuit, which the SEC lost, which means they will likely have to allow the company’s Bitcoin trust to be converted into an ETF,” the manager noted.
In his opinion, financial strength and name give BlackRock an advantage in the race to launch an investment product.
Brandall disagreed with him and noted that a number of competitors of their former company are already more involved in trading digital assets.
“Everyone has a scope [криптовалют] and some are actually much closer to the ecosystem. So I think BlackRock faces a tough battle,” he said.
Brandall estimates that the approval of spot ETFs in the US could lead to $150-200 billion inflows into Bitcoin products within three years.
In 2021, Canada became the first in North America to approve an exchange-traded fund based on the spot price of the first cryptocurrency. The structure is managed by Purpose Investments.
According to CoinGecko, the fund owns 25,289 BTC (~$697 million at the time of writing). In terms of asset volume, it is inferior to the US-registered Bitcoin futures ETF from ProShares, which controls 35,890 BTC (~$990 million).
BlackRock filed an application with the SEC for an investment product based on digital gold on June 15. Following the financial giant, similar requests came from Valkyrie, Fidelity Investments, WisdomTree and Invesco.
Let us recall that the Commission’s ex-lawyer John Reed Stark ruled out approval of a spot Bitcoin exchange fund. However, Bernstein experts and former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton assessed the chances of a new wave of applicants as high.
Found an error in the text? Select it and press CTRL+ENTER
ForkLog newsletters: keep your finger on the pulse of the Bitcoin industry!