The market for a spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) could quickly turn into a “$100 billion juggernaut,” according to new estimates from Bloomberg Intelligence.
Investment giant Galaxy Digital reportedly held a call earlier this month with roughly 300 investment professionals regarding allocating capital to BTC ahead of the expected ETF debut.
Jeff Janson of Summit Wealth, which oversees $500 million in assets, says that significant institutional interest is now directed at Bitcoin because of a likely ETF approval.
“I feel like we are now staring down the gun barrel of the SEC finally delivering approval… And my belief is that once you have access to it in that type of a wrapper, I think you’re going to have a significant amount of institutional-level interest…
We want to make sure that we perform well for our clients and we think that this is going to be a differentiator in how we perform versus other advisers.”
Chuck Cumello, CEO at Essex Financial Services, says he’s receiving inquiries from high-net-worth investors about the potential of a Bitcoin ETF, which he says is going to be a “game changer.”
“It would just be simple and easy to place a trade — to have it long in a client’s investment advisory account.”
As it stands, applications for a spot market Bitcoin ETF have been filed by several heavyweights of the traditional finance world, including Fidelity, Ark Invest and, most notably, BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world which manages over $9 trillion in assets.
While some crypto bulls have touted the inevitability of an imminent approval, some experts like BitGo CEO Mike Belshe have said that another round of rejections from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will likely happen in the near term.
In a new interview on Bloomberg Television, Belshe says that the duality of modern crypto firms like Coinbase – which doubles as both a crypto exchange and custodian – will cause the regulatory agency to reject bids for BTC ETFs.
“We’re all excited about the ETF. It’s definitely getting closer. We’re definitely seeing signals in terms of the conversations that the applicants are having with the SEC. BitGo’s working with a bunch of these guys as well so I’m optimistic.
But I think it’s quite likely we have another round of ETF rejections before we get the positive news, and it really comes back down to market structure. Gary Gensler’s made no secret at this point you have to separate exchanges from custody. The CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) market structure is already this way – you have to separate exchanges from custody [in] the equities markets.”
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