BlackRock bitcoin ETF | The wolf enters the henhouse?
Updated
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 ?
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 shortsNote
France's 2nd largest bank, Crédit Agricole adopts bitcoinTrade active
1h tf
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SEC says spot #Bitcoin ETF filings are inadequateNote
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BlackRock refiles for Bitcoin ETF after amending flaws flagged by SEC in its initial application.Note
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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 TrustTrade closed: target reached
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1 hour till CPI data releaseTrade closed: target reached
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4h tf
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SEC asked Coinbase to halt trading in everything except bitcoin!Note
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SEC approves iShares Bitcoin spot ETFNote
BLACKROCK SAYS ISHARES BITCOIN ETF NOT APPROVEDOver 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 yearNote
Elon Musk says he is "open to using Bitcoin on X but thinks about it very little"Note
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 millionNote
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Grayscale deposited 5,865 
BTC(234M) to CoinbasePrime again 10 mins agoTrade active
BlackRock says Bitcoin "creates global internet value that allows assets to move at low cost and in near real-time across borders."Trade active
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.Trade active
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 BrazilTrade active
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/sNote
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 redemptionsNote
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 operationsNote
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 holdingsNote
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
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its 69 time!
I mean it
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Biden announced that they will not veto the FIT21 crypto bill if passed by Congress todayNote
The US announced that the unadjusted CPI annual rate in May was 3.3%, which was expected to be 3.4% and the previous value was 3.4%. The unadjusted core CPI annual rate in May was 3.4%, which was expected to be 3.5% and the previous value was 3.6%.Trade active
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and here we are
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On July 3, the total net outflow of Bitcoin spot ETFs was $20.4495 million. Grayscale ETF GBTC had a single-day outflow of $26.9947 million. Fidelity ETF FBTC had a single-day inflow of $6.5451 million. Currently, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs is $51.872 billion
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The German government has transferred 175M worth of BTC to various addressesThe authorities in Germany moved a total of 3,000
BTC (175M) to a few addresses, including 1,300 BTC to Bitstamp, Coinbase, and Kraken. This move follows the government's previous transfers of ~17.6M worth of bitcoin that took place on July 2nd. The government currently holds 40,359 bitcoins, worth about 2.32B. Amid this news and payout updates from the defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox, the price of bitcoin fell 6.5% over the past 24 hours to around $54,200. After the transfers were detected, Tron founder Justin Sun offered to buy the remaining 2.3B of bitcoin off-market in order to minimize the impact on the market
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German government offloads its final Bitcoin holdings 🇩🇪Note
The US announced that the second quarter GDP grew by 2.8% annualized, significantly exceeding the expected 2.00% and the previous value of 1.40%. The second quarter core PCE price index annualized quarterly rate was 2.9%, which was expected to be 2.70% and the previous value was 3.70%.Note
Highlights from Donald Trump's speech at Bitcoin 20241. On day one I will fire Gary Gensler and appoint a new SEC chairman.
2. Create a US Government strategic national Bitcoin stockpile if elected.
3. US Government will keep 100% of Bitcoin it owns
4. Bitcoin is going to the moon.
5. Never sell your Bitcoin
6. Bitcoin will one day probably surpass the market cap of Gold.
7. There will never be a CBDC while I am President of the United States.
8. Bitcoin and crypto will skyrocket like never before if elected president.
9. Bitcoin is not threatening the dollar, the current U.S. government is threatening the dollar.
10. The United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world.
11. Bitcoin stands for freedom, sovereignty, and independence from government coercion and control.
12. I pledge to the Bitcoin community that the day I take oath of Office, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' anti-crypto crusade will be over.
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The US government holds over 183,000 Bitcoin, valued at ~12B, making it the largest geopolitical Bitcoin ownerTrade active
59k coming
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, Jump Trading has transferred another 17,576 ETH worth $46.78 million to CEX in the past 24 hours. Jump Trading currently still holds 37.6K wstETH (worth $101 million) and 11.5K STETH (worth $26.3 million) and is in the process of unstaking Lido FinanceNote
Binance CEO: „Recent sharp drops in crypto & equity prices are influenced by macroeconomic factors. We do NOT believe it’s indicative of a long-term negative trend.“
funds are safu !
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Japanese public company Metaplanet secures ¥1 billion loan to buy more Bitcoin, and MicroStrategy will be buying $2 billion soon.Note
Marathon Digital Holdings, world’s largest Bitcoin miner announces 250M raise to buy more BitcoinTrade active
the suspected BitGo address marked by Arkham, which received 33,105 BTC from Mt Gox, transferred 33,023 BTC (worth about $1.96 billion) to a new address: bc1qpn…ny7k53 at 22:40 UTC+8 on August 13, and transferred 117 BTC (worth about $6.96 million) to OKX. Trade active
Attorney Scott Johnsson said that the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) is almost certainly selling Silk Road Bitcoin. According to the service agreement signed between USMS and Coinbase in June, once the transfer finally reaches Coinbase Prime, it can be determined that USMS has sold or is about to sell these Bitcoins. Formal confirmation will be confirmed at the latest in the report of the Department of Justice's asset forfeiture program in fiscal year 2024.Trade active
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Larry Fink, founder of BlackRock Group, said in an interview with CNBC: I believe Bitcoin is a legitimate financial instrument that allows you to have uncorrelated type of returns, I believe that it is an instrument that you invest in when you're more frightened of. I'm a major believer that there is a role for Bitcoin in portfoliosTrade active
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Eric Balchunas shares BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's full quote during the Q3 earnings call: We believe Bitcoin is an asset class in itself. It is an alternative to other commodities like gold. We think the application of this form of investment will be expanded to the role of Ethereum as a blockchain can grow dramatically
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