The crypto community is holding its breath because today is the final deadline for the first application for a Bitcoin (BTC) spot exchange traded fund (ETF) in the United States.
This long-awaited decision could have a huge impact on the Bitcoin price and the crypto sector in general.
Unexpected setback in the Bitcoin ETF battle, or not?
Bitcoin news
Less than 8 hours until historic Bitcoin ETF decision
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is under pressure. The American regulator is yet to announce its decision on the first Bitcoin ETF application today.
The final deadline for Ark Invest's initial application is January 10th. Chances are good that when the SEC approves one, it will approve others at the same time.
However, this also applies vice versa. If the SEC rejects the first application today, it will likely reject the other applications as well.
Typically, the SEC makes such announcements during business hours. This means it only has until 11pm Dutch time to announce its decision.
That means there are less than 8 hours left at the time of publishing this article.
ETF expert Eric Balchunas also assumes that the SEC will make a decision this evening between 10:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. The first American spot Bitcoin ETFs could likely hit the market as soon as tomorrow.
Happy ETF Approval Day (for real this time) to everyone celebrating. As far as we know, ALL SYSTEMS ARE GOOD. Most likely we will see the formal approvals today between 4pm and 6pm, with the derby starting on Thursday. We at Bloomberg are ready to bring the DES pages online as we speak. pic.twitter.com/sh8aoYypdg
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) January 10, 2024
Could the Bitcoin ETF decision come even later?
However, there is no regulation that the SEC actually has to announce this within business hours. It's just very unusual to do this outside of office hours. However, there is little commonality in this situation.
We're talking about approving the first-ever spot Bitcoin ETF in the US, and the SEC isn't interested in that. Numerous applications for this have been rejected in recent years.
Then we haven't even talked about yesterday's hack yet. Yesterday, the SEC's Twitter account was hacked to send a false message that Bitcoin ETFs had already been approved. This was quickly denied by SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
Therefore, there is a slim chance that the SEC will make the announcement after hours. Then, theoretically, you would only have time to make a decision towards the end of the day. That might not happen until tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. Dutch time. That doesn't seem very likely at the moment.
Expectations for the ETF are high as such an exchange-traded fund can attract huge capital. It makes it easier for retail investors in the US to invest in Bitcoin and opens the doors for institutional investors.
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