BlackRock Inc. has a nearly perfect track record when it comes to filing for and launching exchange-traded funds, which is spurring hopes that its try for a Bitcoin ETF might also get regulatory approval after years of rejections.
(Bloomberg) — BlackRock Inc. has a nearly perfect track record when it comes to filing for and launching exchange-traded funds, which is spurring hopes that its try for a Bitcoin ETF might also get regulatory approval after years of rejections.
The world’s largest asset manager has filed for roughly 550 funds and been rejected for just one of them, according to data from Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart at Bloomberg Intelligence. That is being seen by some as evidence BlackRock is confident it could get regulatory blessing for the first-ever Bitcoin spot fund in the US, which slews of other issuers over the past decade have failed to achieve.
“BlackRock doesn’t appear to file for an ETF unless it views approval as likely,” Balchunas and Seyffart wrote in a note.
BlackRock last month filed initial documents for a spot-Bitcoin product, which not only sparked a rally in cryptocurrency prices but prompted a number of other issuers to produce similar applications. No such product has ever before been approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, who has viewed the crypto market as being prone to manipulation, among other issues.
BlackRock’s sole rejection, according to BI, was a 2014 application for an active non-transparent ETF. About 400 of the more-than-500 funds launched by the asset manager are currently trading. Bloomberg Intelligence had previously estimated the number of fund submissions was as high as 575.
Bitcoin has jumped about 20% to around $30,000 since BlackRock filed for the fund, bringing the digital currency’s gain for the year to more than 80%. The token’s price is still less than half the all-time high of almost $69,000 set in late 2021.
To be sure, Bitcoin ETF approval is not guaranteed and fans of the digital token have gone through numerous similar cycles, whereby excitement builds that regulatory endorsement might occur, only to be quashed by officials.
But that hasn’t stopped crypto investors from remaining hopeful. A Bitcoin ETF could broaden the investor base and could potentially lead to rally in crypto prices as excitement continues to build.
Investors and market-watchers, meanwhile, are trying to figure out who, should an approval happen, would get the first green-light, or if a number of them would get the approval all at once. 21Shares, which filed with Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment Management, says it’s first in line because it filed paperwork back in April, before anyone else.
“There’s a pretty well-established practice around these things from the SEC, which is that you process applications in the order in which they’re received,” Ophelia Snyder, co-founder and president of 21Shares, said on Bloomberg TV’s ETF IQ show.
“Changes to that have much wider implications for the ETF markets in general, securities markets in general,” she said. “Our view is that it is unlikely that that’s a precedent that people are interested in changing.”
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.