cryptonews.com
The most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC), jumped by around 4% in less than an hour after Bloomberg reported that the US Securities and Exchange Commission is poised to allow the first US BTC futures exchange-traded fund to begin trading.
At 03:49 UTC, BTC trades USD 59,320 and is up by 2% in a day and 10% in a week.
BTC price chart:
The regulator isn’t likely to block the products from starting to trade next week, the report said, citing people, who asked not to be named while discussing the decision. Four futures-backed Bitcoin ETFs could begin trading on US exchanges this month, with deadlines for applications from VanEck and Valkyrie also approaching, it added.
This month, the SEC already approved an ETF, brought to the market by ETF issuer Volt Equity, that aims to track companies that either have a majority of their assets in bitcoin, or derive a majority of their revenue from related activities, including Bitcoin mining, mining hardware manufacturing, or lending services.
As reported, a futures-backed ETF – known as “paper bitcoin”– would be very unlikely to have much impact in terms of the available supply of actual bitcoins. However, such an ETF could still be useful, especially because it simplifies a lot of things for institutional investors from a regulatory standpoint and it also makes buying bitcoin as part of an existing investment portfolio “totally straightforward.”
However, some analysts warn the crypto community that it may be overestimating how much demand there is for such an ETF. For example, Bloomberg expects only about USD 4bn of demand in the first 12 months for the exchange-traded fund. The figure represents just around 1% of bitcoin’s market capitalization and around 3% of all bitcoin futures traded.
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Learn more:
- Experts Disagree on Prospects of Bitcoin ETF in 2021 as Deadline Nears
- Not Ideal, but ‘Better Than Nothing’ - Market Awaits 'Paper Bitcoin' ETF
- SEC Approves Bitcoin-Related ETF as Market Awaits for 'Real' BTC ETF