The US securities and exchange regulatory body SEC is approaching the deadline for announcing its decision on whether it will approve Grayscale to convert its Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a Bitcoin spot ETF – this is expected to happen today at midnight.
Grayscale v. SEC: decision due tonight
The crypto community has all eyes on this, looking forward to the outcome anxiously. If the result is positive, this will be the first ever Bitcoin spot ETF launched in the US. The SEC has already delayed its decision on a similar filing made by Ark Invest spearheaded by Cathie Wood.
Next year in March, it will be the turn of BlackRock to see if its filing for a Bitcoin spot ETF will be approved, delayed or turned down. Nobody expects the third option to be picked by the regulator.
In late August, court ruled out that the SEC must accept the filing of Grayscale and give it a thorough consideration. The court ruled that the previous SEC decision to reject the filing of Grayscale was incorrect.
The victory of Grayscale over the SEC, as many believe, drove Grayscale and its CEO Michael Sonnenshein to make a similar move regarding its Ethereum Trust. As reported by U.Today, earlier this year Grayscale also submitted a filing seeking to convert its Ethereum Trust (ETHE) into an Ethereum spot ETF. The SEC has not made a decision on that one yet.
According to a tweet published by a Fox Business journalist and producer Eleanor Terrett, should the SEC fail to deliver their decision, then in a week from now, the case of Grayscale will be closed and the company’s legal team “can start working with SEC staff to get the process of approval rolling”.
She noted that in that case Grayscale would be driven to work with two departments of the SEC on this issue - Corporation Finance and Trading and Markets.
Bitcoin’s possible reaction to absence of BTC decision
Prominent crypto trader and analyst Michael van de Poppe took to X social media platform today to share his expectations towards Bitcoin price. He noticed that the SEC regulatory agency is due to release its Grayscale decision today.
However, if it does not happen, then, Poppe tweeted, “we might be seeing a case where Bitcoin reverses upwards in the coming weeks.” “I’m positioned long”, he added.
At the time of this writing, the global flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin is changing hands in the $26,700 zone, pushed down there earlier this week by several factors, including the recent geopolitical situation in the East. Besides, Bitcoin miners have been taking advantage of the current BTC price level and have been selling their Bitcoins heavily to cover their operational expenses.
Just before Bitcoin plunged below $27,000, miners sold a whopping 20,000 BTC (worth nearly half a billion US dollars) on centralized crypto exchanges, pushing the Bitcoin price further down.
Ethereum follows down after Bitcoin
Ethereum plummeted following Bitcoin, now trading at $1,541 per coin. According to the data recently shared by Santiment on-chain analytics company, the level of discussions of ETH on various social media apps – X, Telegram, etc – has surged a lot higher than usual since the end of last month, despite the hard fall of the coin.
Besides, there are now enormous amounts of dormant ETH being moved – the highest within a month, and interest of traders towards the second biggest crypto remains high, according to Santiment.
Gamza Khanzadaev
Tomiwabold Olajide
