The US Securities and Exchange Commission officially approved the first-ever regulated spot Bitcoin ETF in America. The massive decision came on Wednesday, just a day after a fake approval tweet had caused $90 million in liquidations. The SEC approved applications from the likes of Invesco Galaxy, Van Eck, Wisdom Tree, Fidelity, BlackRock, Greyscale, Bitwise, Franklin Templeton and more. These groups had all applied for spot BTC ETFs throughout 2023.
The SEC’s approval arrived just a day after a fake post of approval coming from their own official Twitter account had made Bitcoin’s price jump. The 1.5% daily gain was quickly reversed on Tuesday evening when the news was confirmed as fake, and its price slid by as much as 3%. It is important to point out that Wednesday was the SEC’s deadline for approval of most of these applications. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the price of Bitcoin did not budge all too much immediately following the approval. However, at the time of writing it has risen by over 6%.
The decision to allow spot BTC ETFs to be listed and traded on exchanges will have big repercussions in the crypto world, especially in terms of Bitcoin adoption and investment. The approval gives US-based traders and investors “direct exposure to the price of Bitcoin without requiring them to buy it or worry about self-custody”, as Cointelegraph put it. Indeed, the head of Galaxy Digital estimates that spot Bitcoin ETF inflows could reach $14 billion in the first year.
While the SEC approved the applications, Chair Gary Gensler once again came out with a cautious tone regarding crypto. In a statement, he said “While we approved the listing and trading of certain spot bitcoin ETP shares today, we did not approve or endorse Bitcoin.” The commission had been contrary to the applications for a while, but were forced to revisit their position after an August court case was won by Greyscale regarding the denial of their application.
