TL; DR
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The SEC has rejected several applications for “spot Bitcoin ETFs,” which allow investors to invest in Bitcoin without actually holding the coin.
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Garyscale has taken their case to the US Court of Appeals… and at the time of writing this – in fact, a few minutes ago: A judge ordered a review of the case!
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The decision will no longer be in the hands of the SEC, but instead of a (hopefully) unbiased third party (a judge – or judges).
Full story
Yesterday’s news cycle sucked, but it’s all made up for today!
Why are we so excited? Let’s start here…
The SEC has rejected several applications for “spot Bitcoin ETFs,” which allow investors to invest in Bitcoin without actually holding the coin.
That is, investors buy a share of a company → that company takes their money and uses it to buy Bitcoin.
(This method allows investors to buy BTC without having to worry about navigating regulatory guidelines; the people who manage ETF do it for them).
Now…Grayscale was one of the companies whose filing was rejected by the SEC.
And they weren’t too happy about that.
So they took their case to the US Court of Appeals… and at the time of writing this – in fact, a few minutes ago:
A judge ordered a review of the case!
Damn. Okay, it feels like that didn’t hit as hard as we wanted.
But it should hit you like a pile of rocks tied to an African savannah elephant hurtling toward you at 100 mph in a 40 zone.
The court essentially told the SEC:
Your argument for why this ETF should be rejected (the same one you made for a decade) makes absolutely no sense.
…and in the absence of a coherent argument this is considered illegal.”
So what’s next?
Well, there are a few possibilities it could walk…
But as long as:
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The SEC cannot successfully appeal the ruling, and…
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The court does not give the SEC an opportunity to reject the filing on other grounds
Then it all essentially leads to this:
The decision will no longer be in the hands of the SEC, but instead of a (hopefully) unbiased third party (a judge – or judges).
If Grayscale can make a fair case for why this ETF should get the green light while the SEC continues to flounder incoherently…
We may have a spot Bitcoin ETF!
Which would probably attract billions of dollars worth of investments in Bitcoin.
(And billions of investments in scarce assets usually lead to huge upward price movements).
This – and we can’t emphasize it enough – we like to see.