An analyst from Bloomberg, James Seyffart says approval for a Bitcoin ETF in January has a high probability. The analyst stated this during a Scoop Podcast with he Block’s Frank Chaparro.
Seyffart who is famous for his spot bitcoin ETF analysis and predictions and who has suggested since October there was a 90% chance of approval by Jan said the window for a Bitcoin ETF approval was likely between Jan. 8 and Jan. 10.
The securities and exchange commission (SEC) had delayed its decision on spot Bitcoin ETFs which were filed earlier this year. This was quite disappointing, as many in the crypto space and analysts like Seyffart believed an approval was at hand.
It was later predicted that an approval could come in Q4 2023, but there has been another postponement, and the nearest possible time to expect the decision is in January. SeyFFart’s predicted time coincides with when the applications from Ark and 21Shares will reach their final deadline.
He expects the SEC to approve the applications upon the expiration. “If the SEC is going to deny them here, though, it would be the SEC kind of going nuclear in a way,” he said.
Mass Approvals Likely
More than just believing that the SEC will approve a Bitcoin spot ETF in January, Seyffart believes the agency may approve several applications at once. This has been the position of most analysts predicting the outcome of the decision.
The SEC “doesn’t want to be picking favorites here to win these races, whether it’s getting the most assets or acquiring the most liquidity,” Seyffart said. “So if the SEC is going to approve all these things, it’s likely going to approve them all at once, because, again, it doesn’t want to play kingmaker in this case,” he added.
Seyffart said that the SEC is also being cautious and instead of approving the applications on a first come first serve basis taking its time and may be planning to approve all of them at once.
Asked what gave the Bloomberg analyst that sense, Seyffart said, “We’ve heard rumblings from different people, from people involved in this process, people who know other people involved in this process.”
“We have sources that are very reliable and some sources that we don’t know how reliable they can be. But we’re hearing similar things from a bunch of different people, coming from different angles, which we’ve been hearing for over a year,” he added.
Grayscale Win a Plus
The analyst also referred to the victory Grayscale secured in August, saying it has played a crucial role in making the SEC more inclined to approve the ETF applications.
“I think the SEC has kind of been backed into a corner here by the judges basically throwing out every decision and reasoning it’s used to deny an ETF in the past,” he added. “I think the SEC and Chair Gary Gensler know that they were overplaying their hand a bit and are kind of forced into a corner right now.”
Grayscale challenged the decision of the SEC to deny its application to convert to a spot Bitcoin ETF.
In its ruling, the court asked the agency to reconsider its decision because there was no real reason why the application was denied. Indeed, this may be a plus since the SEC may not have any reason for not giving approvals in January.
