Bitcoin momentum has stalled, but the asset is still holding firm above $30,000. Financial service giants such as BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, have filed spot bitcoin ETFs with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This has buoyed investors who had been reeling earlier this month when the SEC filed lawsuits against exchange powerhouses Binance and Coinbase.
This is truly welcome news for the market, but perhaps not quite the beginning of the end of the bear market, said Tim Frost, CEO of digital wealth platform Yield App. This pump is likely down to a lot of institutional buying on BlackRock and other institutions’ applications for a Bitcoin spot ETF, which have not been approved. And, if these get rejected by the US SEC like all the others, this may well lead to another tumble.
Ether, the second largest crypto in market value, was recently trading at $1,880, down about 1.8% from Wednesday. Other major cryptos were mixed, with a few, including ADA and Litecoin, up more than 2%, but others, including MATIC, the native crypto of the Polygon blockchain, off about the same.
So why are financial institutions taking a fresh look at crypto and flooding in? According to Frost, these detractors should really think about the future. Cryptocurrency cannot stay in its own echo chamber forever and it must be accepted and bought by institutions if it is to truly grow and expand.
The answer is simple: financial institutions like making money and offering a spot bitcoin ETF is a way to make money.