Bitcoin Edges Towards $28,000 as Grayscale's ETF Hopes Stay Alive

By Liam J. Kelly

Bitcoin again edged back toward $28,000 on Monday morning as the cryptocurrency's spot ETF journey took another bullish turn.

It's currently trading hands at around $27,700 after hitting $27,958 early Monday morning, per CoinGecko data.

A key driver behind the latest move has been a key legal update in Grayscale's ETF aspirations.

On Friday, several sources close to the matter reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission wouldn't appeal an August court ruling related to its blocking Grayscale's Bitcoin ETF filing.

The court ruled at the time that the SEC had been "arbitrary and capricious" in its initial rejection of Grayscale's application to convert the Grayscale Bitcoin Fund (GBTC) into a spot Bitcoin ETF. This means that the SEC will now likely revisit the application.

Unlike a traditional exchange-traded fund, GBTC does not allow investors to redeem for the underlying asset it aims to track. This has led to steep dislocations between the price of GBTC and Bitcoin, as traders aren't able to arbitrage away the difference.

Since the beginning of the year, GBTC has traded at a double-digit discount, sometimes as high as 47%.

Today, that figure stands at 15.8%, the lowest discount GBTC has enjoyed since late 2021, per Ycharts.

GBTC discount and premium over the past three years. Image: Ycharts.

Grayscale's is just one of many Bitcoin ETF applications currently in play, with the most notable firm being financial behemoth BlackRock which entered the race earlier this year.

Around the market after Bitcoin

After Bitcoin, several notable altcoins have also enjoyed a healthy uptick on Monday.

The most bullish move came from Solana, a speedy layer-1 blockchain previously billed as an "Ethereum killer."

It's risen a hefty 5%, making SOL the biggest gainer among the market's top ten cryptocurrencies.

It's trading at $23, down 91% from its all-time high of $259 set in November 2021. Solana's move comes amid reports that the FTX estate had moved to stake its massive SOL holdings over the weekend. With creditors calling, many worried that the estate would sell off its cryptocurrency stash in order to make users whole.

Binance's native BNB token is the day's other winner, having risen by almost 3% overnight. The industry's largest crypto exchange by trading volume executed a $450 million burn of more than 2 million BNB tokens. To burn crypto refers to destroying the asset, effectively reducing its circulating supply.

Overall, the wider cryptocurrency market rose by 2.4% overnight, adding some $24.8 billion to the total market cap of all cryptocurrencies.

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