Important facts:
-
BlackRock is one of the companies awaiting SEC approval to offer Bitcoin spot ETFs.
-
The SEC has until January 10 to make its ruling on the initial applications for these ETFs.
According to an anonymous source from VanEck's director of digital asset research, Matthew Sigel, financial giant BlackRock has more than $2 billion that it plans to invest in spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (spot ETFs).
The news was announced in a space informerly Twitter, moderated by The Block Editor-in-Chief Tim Copeland.
The large amount of money is intended solely to cover the “newly growing flows of Bitcoin holders.” in the first weekshortly after the SEC approved Bitcoin spot ETF applications.
The deadline for the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve or reject the first pending applications is January 10 this year. That means next Wednesday. Therefore, if approved early, BlackRock could start injecting money next week.
Although BlackRock has yet to make an official statement, the news has sparked speculation and debate in the financial world and the Bitcoin ecosystem.
If these rumors about BlackRock prove true, VanEck's assessment would be very poor. According to Sigel, the company estimates that trading in this instrument will amount to around $2.5 billion in the first quarter, not just the first week.
The Expectations of Bitcoin Spot ETFs
The wait for a final answer from the SEC on whether to approve or reject 14 companies' applications to offer a Bitcoin spot ETF is keeping investors and traders on edge.
Some previous history has already served as a basis to get an idea of how the Bitcoin market might react in either scenario.
On the one hand, there is the fake news that Cointelegraph spread in October 2023 and in which they claimed this BlackRock’s Bitcoin Spot ETF has been approved by the SEC. This led to an immediate spike in BTC price and millions of dollars in losses for traders who had bet on downside risks. As soon as it became known that the news was not true, the price of Bitcoin fell again.
On the other hand, we have a rumor that this time caused the opposite of the previous one. As CriptoNoticias reported last Thursday, January 4th, The price of Bitcoin fell from $44,000 to $41,000 a matter of minutes.
The reason was a statement from the company MatrixPort in a report. There they claimed that the SEC would not approve spot Bitcoin ETFs because their applicants failed to meet a “critical requirement” that they also failed to specify.