A long-awaited ruling about Grayscale’s application for a spot bitcoin ETF failed to inspire stagnant crypto markets.
Last week, a court ruled that the SEC was wrong to deny Grayscale’s application to create a spot bitcoin ETF. It was a landmark victory for Grayscale. Investors hope that the product – which would allow people to get exposure to bitcoin without actually holding it – could usher in a new wave of retail investors in crypto.
But the ruling does not mean that Grayscale’s ETF is a done deal – nor are the outstanding applications from other firms, such as BlackRock and Fidelity, who want to launch similar products. The ruling simply means the regulator now has to review Grayscale’s application, although the SEC has time left to appeal the court’s decision. The SEC has pushed back its decision date for three other spot bitcoin ETF applications, filings showed.
Bitcoin rose around 6% on the day of the ruling, briefly rising above $28,000, but it had lost those gains by the end of last week. Yesterday Grayscale’s lawyers wrote to the SEC urging it to approve the ETF. Click here for a breakdown of what could happen now.
Meanwhile, the head of capital markets at the London Stock Exchange Group told the Financial Times that the exchange is considering using blockchain. The idea would be to use the technology to make transactions with traditional assets more efficient, rather than anything specifically to do with crypto assets.
Mainstream financial institutions have long been talking about the potential for blockchain to improve the process of issuing and trading financial assets, but there’s little sign of it becoming widespread. A project to rebuild the Australian stock exchange using blockchain-based technology was abandoned last year.
The World Federation of Exchanges said on Tuesday that crypto was “at the forefront of all our members’ minds”. Still, exchanges are drawing a distinction between blockchain technology and the market for crypto assets. A third of the exchanges surveyed by the WFE have no plans to offer crypto-related products or services in future.
