New SEC Filings Give the Impression US Regulators Approved a Bitcoin Futures ETF

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The price of bitcoin jumped over 8% during the last 24 hours after a number of documents stemming from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) web portal indicated that the Proshares Trust exchange-traded fund (ETF) could be listed as soon as next week. Proshares filed a post-effective amended prospectus on Friday that shows the firm’s intention to launch on Monday, October 18 on NYSE Arca.

Bitcoin’s Price Spikes as Strong Signals Suggest Bitcoin Futures ETF Could Launch Next Week

The crypto community watched the price of bitcoin (BTC) jump awfully close to the crypto asset’s all-time high on Friday afternoon. During the late afternoon trading sessions, BTC tapped a daily high of $62,945 per unit at around 5:30 p.m. (EST). The reason for this increase is likely due to a number of documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seeming to strongly indicate a bitcoin ETF is launching soon.

The first signal was from James Seyffart, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence who tweeted about Bloomberg’s data team “adding the Proshares Bitcoin Strategy ETF to the terminal.” Seyffart further added: “[The] ticker will be $BITO. 95 bps — less than half $GBTC’s 2% fee. This thing is going live next week. Either Monday or Tuesday.” Sharing this Form 8A document, the Bloomberg Intelligence analyst continued:

Also should add that [Valkyrie Funds] has filed their 8A which essentially registers a security for trading on [an] exchange. Nothing from Proshares on that front yet. So Valkyrie [is almost] certainly going to begin trading next week as well if I had to guess.

Proshares Trust Post-Effective Amended Prospectus

In addition to Seyffart’s commentary on Twitter, Proshares filed a post-effective amended prospectus for its ETF on Friday. The amended documents note that the Proshares bitcoin ETF intends to launch on October 18, 2021, and the filing also notes the ticker will be called “$BITO.” While the Proshares ETF could be the first to be listed as an approved bitcoin ETF by U.S. regulators, it will deal with bitcoin derivatives.

The Proshares ETF will be a bitcoin futures-based product and analysts are doubtful a BTC spot market ETF will get the green light by the SEC this year. There’s been a lot of confusion about whether the SEC actually approved a bitcoin ETF on October 15 and there’s speculation signals could change. Seyffart’s Friday afternoon commentary on Twitter also shares a tweet he wrote on October 8 when he stated:

The SEC has pulled the rug on approval so many times before, I can’t help but wonder what’s around the corner. We (and all the potential issuers) are basically Charlie Brown trying to kick a football.

Speculation Concerning Valkyrie ETF

People are still skeptical because the U.S. regulator has rejected bitcoin ETFs in a vocal manner, but hasn’t said anything officially about approving a crypto exchange-traded fund. Others have also shared documents concerning Valkyrie’s bitcoin exchange-traded fund, as many have been speculating about its approval.

Still, a few individuals have said the 8A document concerning Valkyrie’s Bitcoin Strategy ETF does not necessarily mean guaranteed approval.

“The SEC has not approved Valkyrie’s Bitcoin Strategy ETF…yet,” the Twitter account Bitcoin Archive told its 539,600 followers. “This is a notice from Nasdaq to the SEC saying they have approved the securities and awaiting a decision from the SEC. That is all.”

Vaneck’s Gabor Gurbacs responded to Bitcoin Archive’s tweet and said: “Good catch. There are so many approvals so people no longer [know] when an actual approval is. LOL.” Bitcoin Archive replied to the Vaneck executive and said: “Bloomberg guys think it’s 99% certain Mon/Tue, but we don’t have confirmation until [the] SEC says so.”

What do you think about the new SEC filings that give the impression the U.S. regulator approved a bitcoin futures-based ETF? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.