Bitcoin ETF Approval Window Opens Soon—Here Are the Dates to Watch

As Bitcoin ETF decision deadlines loom, there's growing interest in figuring out when, exactly, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will make its announcement.

There's a handful of spot Bitcoin ETF applications pending with the regulator. The SEC missed another window for a decision, choosing instead to extend all of its deadlines. But but there's also been word that the SEC has met with Grayscale and BlackRock in the interim to discuss amendments to their applications.

To be clear, the SEC could still deny any or all of the pending applications. There's mounting optimism from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong to JP Morgan analysts, but there's no guarantee that the SEC will give any spot Bitcoin ETF the green light in early 2024. Still, experts who have been tracking the applicants' odds say they've never been better, and they have narrowed down a potential approval window to a handful of days in early January.

Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst James Seyffart says while the window is technically from January 5 through January 10, the securities regulator is unlikely make an announcement on a Friday and even less likely to drop news about the ETF applicants over the weekend.

So that shrinks the window to Monday, January 8 through Wednesday, January 10. "Mark your calendars people," he wrote on Twitter.

The crypto industry has been waiting for a spot Bitcoin ETF to be approved for years.

In the U.S., regulators have approved Bitcoin futures and even leveraged Bitcoin futures ETFs to trade. But a genuine Bitcoin ETF, one that directly tracks BTC and not just derivatives, has so far eluded investors.

The idea is this: shares in a Bitcoin ETF would gain and lose value as Bitcoin's price fluctuates, and investments in those shares would allow buyers to gain exposure to BTC without actually buying or holding digital coins.

Because an ETF makes it easier for traditional investors to jump into crypto, analysts have long predicted that such a product would bring a massive influx of capital into the market. Recently, researchers at blockchain data firm CryptoQuant said they expect an ETF to double Bitcoin's market cap, and potentially increase the overall crypto market by $1 trillion. For context, Apple's market cap sits at a cool $2.9 trillion today.

Just the chance that an ETF might be approved has been incredibly bullish for Bitcoin's price. The world's oldest and largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has found buoyancy thanks to all the attention from institutions and the upcoming Bitcoin halving, which limits Bitcoin's inflation rate and could further drive up demand.