Institutional scale bitcoin investment in America, the dream of many early digital gold asset backers, is becoming a distinct possibility.
But for some, an institutional move into bitcoin is nothing more than a dystopian nightmare, where a noble battle against the corruption of the fiat monetary system ends with the rich, once again, getting richer.
The application for an ETF by the largest asset manager in the world, BlackRock, could not have happened at a stranger time in cryptocurrency’s regulatory history.
Just as the SEC is hunting down Coinbase for allegedly flouting securities laws, BlackRock is requesting the SEC’s approval for a spot bitcoin ETF — with Coinbase as its custodial partner.
It should be no surprise that BlackRock would choose to work with Coinbase for its ETF, as they have long been strategic partners. Still, the entry of old-world wealth into the bitcoin realm is raising red flags in the community. While the notion of large-scale, heavily regulated investment entering bitcoin appears on the surface to be highly bullish for the industry, not everyone is enthused. Concerns about some sort of hostile takeover are swirling in the community.
The founder of Morgan Creek Capital Management says Xapo, the institutional-scale crypto custody tool that Coinbase acquired in 2019, could come into regulatory play. “What if,” he asks, BlackRock can “take over this storage unit?” BlackRock would then hold a significant portion of crypto assets in America, he says. “And if they have the bulk of it,” regulators could then shut down the Coinbase exchange as an SEC-alleged “unlicensed casino” and hand the Xapo unit over to BlackRock.
Host Ippolito adds that the response from the Bitcoin community has been “pretty roundly negative” regarding the ETF application.“In the filing, there’s a little paragraph about what BlackRock would do in the event of a hard fork,” Ippolito says. “BlackRock is going to have to make a decision.”
“In the event of a hard fork,” Ippolito explains, “there will be two different copies of Bitcoin.” As has happened in previous forks, one of the two will be selected as the canonical chain. “And BlackRock’s gonna have to make a decision about that.”
Fears swirl around the possibilities of BlackRock closing off access to what some would perceive as the preferred fork, but Ippolito is concerned with “the Bitcoin community’s pushback.”
“It makes me think that they don’t really understand social consensus,” he says. “If you want Bitcoin to keep going up and be widely adopted you need larger and larger buyers.”
Yusko responds to the community’s backlash against undesirable money entering the scene, “You want any and all fiat of any kind in any variety to convert to bitcoin because the bigger the network, the bigger the safety, security, the more adoption.”
“That’s the only way the value of a network goes up.”
Investment management company Invesco (IVZ), which has $1.5 trillion assets under management, reapplied for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund in conjunction with Galaxy Digital.
The move comes after TradFi giant BlackRock filed for an spot ETF last week, which shook up the market. Another peer, WisdomTree, also refiled for an spot ETF on Tuesday, after getting rejected by the SEC in 2022.Invesco first filed for a bitcoin ETF in In 2021 - also with Galaxy. It also filed for a bitcoin futures ETF, but dropped the effort in October 2021 after a futures ETF by ProShares was approved and began trading first.
In its filing, Invesco argued that the lack of a spot bitcoin ETF pushes investors towards riskier alternatives, as seen in insolvencies like FTX, Celsius Network, BlockFi, and Voyager Digital Holdings.
Invesco also emphasized the need for investor protection, saying that approval for such a spot bitcoin ETF hinges on a surveillance sharing agreement with a significant, regulated market, not on the regulation of the spot bitcoin market itself.
Surveillance-sharing agreements facilitate the exchange of information concerning market trading activity, clearing processes, and customer identification, which would significantly reduce the potential for market manipulation – something the Securities and Exchange Commission is very concerned about.
BlackRock (BLK), in its filing, advocated for the same thing, argued that Nasdaq could be brought in to fill this role.
“The SEC is very concerned with market manipulation related to Bitcoin prices, and has cited this in almost, if not all, previous rejections,” Graeme Moore, Head of Tokenization, at the Polymesh Association, said earlier to CoinDesk. “This is because the SEC’s view is that Coinbase and others are not regulated as exchanges and therefore cannot be trusted to ‘prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices’.”
So far, the SEC hasn’t given any indication as to when it plans to make an announcement regarding a bitcoin ETF.
long story short big boys watching BTC and the Game is ON
who is ready for 40K btc ?
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BTC futures are showing traders switching from majority short to long. 54.3% of traders are long Bitcoin at a ratio of 1.2 compared to BTC shorts
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France's 2nd largest bank, Crédit Agricole adopts bitcoin
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1h tf
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SEC says spot #Bitcoin ETF filings are inadequate
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BlackRock refiles for Bitcoin ETF after amending flaws flagged by SEC in its initial application.
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BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said Wednesday that he viewed the bitcoin as having the role of “digitizing gold.” "We have a good track record working with our regulators and trying to make sure we're thinking about all the issues around any filing," he said in an interview with Fox. Nasdaq last week refiled a 19b-4 form for BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust
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1 hour till CPI data release
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4h tf
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SEC asked Coinbase to halt trading in everything except bitcoin!
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SEC approves iShares Bitcoin spot ETF
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BLACKROCK SAYS ISHARES BITCOIN ETF NOT APPROVED
Over 100M Liquidated in last 1 hour due to fake news about Bitcoin spot ETF approval
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In a note on Monday, Standard Chartered said it anticipated inflows of $50 billion to $100 billion to Bitcoin spot ETF in 2024 alone. It also issued a prediction on Monday that the price of Bitcoin will top $200,000 by the end of 2025 and ETF approval is a key driver of BTC price upside. Standard Chartered also predicts that the SEC will approve a spot Ethereum ETF in the second quarter of this year
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Elon Musk says he is "open to using Bitcoin on X but thinks about it very little"
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Eric Balchunas said that in just 20 minutes after opening, the trading volume of BTC spot ETFs such as IBIT and FBTC has reached $500 million, of which IBIT trading volume reached $293 million and is expected to exceed $1 billion, and FBTC reached $156 million, GBTC trading volume reached $280 million
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Grayscale deposited 5,865 CRYPTOCAP:BTC(234M) to CoinbasePrime again 10 mins ago
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BlackRock says Bitcoin "creates global internet value that allows assets to move at low cost and in near real-time across borders."
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Larry pumpin our bags
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Bitcoin spot ETFs saw total net inflows of $232 million on February 23. Grayscale ETF GBTC had a single-day net outflow of US$44.25 million. BlackRock ETF IBIT has a single-day net inflow of US$167 million. The current total historical net inflow of IBIT reached US$5.91 billion.
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call this FINK pattern
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The Alt szn will be epic
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its getting interesting
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BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, announced this Thursday the launch of the BDR of the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF in Brazil, in partnership with the country's stock exchange operator, B3. This is the same Bitcoin ETF launched in the United States in January and the first crypto ETF in Brazil
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be ready for new ATH
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correction time
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The Fourth Bitcoin Halving will occur on April 19, 2024 at approximately 13:30 UTC. If Bitcoin’s current price holds or increases moderately, we estimate ~3-7% of Bitcoin’s hashrate may come offline after the halving. We anticipate that Bitcoin’s year-end hashrate will range between 639-674 EH/s
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Hong Kong may approve Spot ETF that invest directly in Bitcoin and Ethereum as early as Monday (April 15), according to Bloomberg. Unlike in the United States, Hong Kong’s cryptocurrency ETFs can support physical redemptions
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US President Biden told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a call on Saturday that the U.S. will oppose any Israeli counterattack against Iran. U.S. will not participate in any offensive operations against Iran and will not support such operations
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China Asset Management, Bosera Capital, HashKey Capital Limited, etc. announced that their applications for Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs have been approved by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, allowing investors to directly use Bitcoin and Ethereum to subscribe for corresponding ETF shares Harvest Global Investments also announced that the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission has approved in principle the product of Bitcoin and Ethereum digital asset spot ETFs
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Wells Fargo, America's 3rd largest bank discloses spot Bitcoin ETF holdings
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The United States announced that the non-seasonally adjusted annual CPI rate in April was 3.4%, which was expected to be 3.4% and the previous value was 3.5%. The non-seasonally adjusted core CPI annual rate in April was 3.6%, compared with expectations of 3.6% and the previous value of 3.8%. Core CPI fell back to 0.3% on a monthly basis in April, the lowest since December.
Traders strengthened their bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in September and December after the CPI data was slightly lower than expected
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On May 17 another $1 billion USDt was minted The last time this much Tether was printed, BTC reached $73,000
@moonypto, last time we had discussions about APT, hope you remember what I was saying 20$ is the limit. I was right. Right now I feel the market is very unstable and everybody can be later very suprised. Pumps and dumps incomming...
salam dadash gol , agha bishtar in deta ii ke neveshti dastet dard nakone vali sad lazem baraye darkesho nadaram lotf mikoni ye saiti moarefi koni ke betonam tozihateto befahmam dastet dard nakone ke doneste haye khdeto ba ma be eshterak mizari
Why would institutions rush to buy it at 30k when they can crash it and get it for cheap? Why the fomo to outbid ourself to get 5% profit to lose 50% ? Lol.
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@RockstarD12, because first they already aped in and second when you manage ten trillions everything is cheap for you
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@moonypto, they didn't get in the position they they are by throwing money and giving them to retail.
Government is also going to push our their own currency. Population will cry on forums etc and then comply. Government already largest holder.
You see this is a rigged game ser. Better luck playing rullet at casino than making money on bitcorn