It’s been a long time The Path for Spot Bitcoin ETF Filers – Today the SEC finally approved all 11 standing applications from issuers.
“I knew for 10 years that this was going to happen,” Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale Investments, said on TechCrunch’s Chain Reaction podcast. Podcast. “We always knew that investor sentiment would get there, regulators would get there, and the financial advisor community would get there.”
Grayscale, a digital asset investment firm that was one of 11 companies to apply for a bitcoin ETF, is best known for its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which has now converted, or “listed,” into its new bitcoin niche. ETF product.
The other 10 issuers are BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, Bitwise Bitcoin ETP Trust, WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund, Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust, VanEck Bitcoin Trust, Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF, Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund, Hashdex Bitcoin ETF, and Franklin Bitcoin ETF. .
Before now, the only crypto-focused ETFs in the US were tied to Bitcoin and Ethereum futures. Cryptocurrency ETFs focused on the spot market aim to allow investors and institutions alike to invest in crypto assets through a wrapper. When an investor buys shares in a spot ETF, he or she is buying shares of the fund that owns that asset (for example, BlackRock) rather than owning it directly, giving investors a structured layer of protection.
While futures ETFs represent a big milestone in 2021, Sonnenshein believes the most significant event that brought spot bitcoin ETF approvals was the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in favor of Grayscale v. SEC in the bitcoin spot case. . ETF in summer 2023.
While this decision overturned the SEC’s previous denial order on “elevating” GBTC into an ETF, Sonnenshein believes “it was a moment of not only validation for us as an asset manager, but for the industry as a whole… breaking the deadlock.” “
When Bitcoin ETFs got approved, there was a lot of pent-up demand, Sonnenshein said. “Many industry watchers and observers, especially in the financial advisor market, even here in the U.S. alone, have realized that there is about $30 trillion worth of advisable wealth.”