Bitcoin ETF hopefuls eye this week for long-awaited SEC green light

New York – A series of high-stakes deadlines this week will mark the culmination of a years-long push to launch exchange-traded funds (ETFs) backed by Bitcoin in the United States.

Would-be Bitcoin ETF issuers have been given until the morning of Jan 8 in Washington to submit any last-minute revisions to their pending applications, Bloomberg News has reported. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) itself has until Jan 10 to take action on at least one of those applications, and crypto insiders have speculated that the regulator will use that date to announce a slew of decisions at once.

There are two technical requirements that must be fulfilled before a spot-backed Bitcoin ETF can start trading. First, the SEC must sign off on so-called 19b-4 filings by the exchanges that would list the ETFs. Second, the regulator must approve the relevant S-1 forms, which are the registration applications from the would-be issuers – a list that includes BlackRock and Fidelity.

The SEC is planning to vote on the exchanges’ filings, the 19b-4s, in the coming days, Bloomberg News has reported. The regulator may or may not then take action on the issuers’ applications, the S-1s, around the same time. If the SEC grants both sets of required approvals, the ETFs could start trading as soon as the next business day.

A representative of the SEC declined to comment on the status of the applications.

Bitcoin’s boosters say ETFs backed by the largest crypto token would represent a watershed moment for the digital asset industry. Billions of dollars are at stake, representing potential inflows from retail and institutional investors alike.

“The market is still seriously underestimating the potential impact of a Bitcoin ETF approval,” said Mr Michael Anderson, co-founder of crypto venture firm Framework Ventures.

But the SEC, under Democrat Gary Gensler and his Trump-era predecessor Jay Clayton, has previously refused to allow such a product to launch, citing concerns about investor protection and the potential for market manipulation.

However, speculation has been mounting since August, when the SEC lost a key legal fight against crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments, that the regulator will have to acquiesce to the growing clamour for the product.

Market wagers that regulatory approval is on the horizon

fuelled a more than 160 per cent jump in Bitcoin

in 2023. That still was not enough for the token to re-attain the record highs set in Nov 2021, when it hit almost US$69,000 ($92,000).

The token has stayed in a relatively tight range of around US$44,000 since the start of 2024. It slipped about 2 per cent to US$43,400 as at 11.15am on Jan 8 in Singapore, part of a wider dip in crypto markets at the start of the working week. BLOOMBERG