ARK21's Spot Bitcoin ETF Filing Has 90% Chance Of Approval By January 2024 Deadline: Analysts

The amended spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) filing from ARK Invest and 21Shares has a 90% chance of approval by January 2024, analysts say.

"A recent update to the spot Bitcoin ETF prospectus from ARK and 21Shares adds at least five pages of new text, signaling a constructive conversation with the SEC [U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission] – a step that typically only occurs when a fund is on its way to being approved. We believe there's a 90% chance of approval by ARK's Jan. 10 deadline, " Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst James Seyffart said.

While the ETF analyst did not discount the possibility that the SEC can hold things to prolong its decision on the spot Bitcoin ETF filing, he noted the Division of Trading and Markets would likely give it a nod.

"Theoretically they could approve under the 19b4 process and then hold things up for longer using Corp fin or another SEC division. But we believe the Division of Trading and Markets is cornered by the courts and the other issuers here. They'll likely have to approve. Thus, the 90%," Seyffart tweeted.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas last week said the back and forth between the SEC and spot Bitcoin ETF applicants indicates a positive sign that could mean an eventual approval by the regulator.

Aside from ARK 21, Invesco Galaxy has also updated its spot Bitcoin ETF prospectus, and Balchunas expects other applicants to follow suit.

While acknowledging that the spot Bitcoin ETF approval may bring a stream of funds into the crypto market, some like BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes are concerned about its potential influence on traditional finance.

"Will so much value and currency be owned by these centralized asset managers, who are essentially arms of the TradFi (traditional finance) ecosystem, that the underlying fundamentals of what Bitcoin is – the privacy – will those be altered? Will a BlackRock support through, maybe ownership and large mining companies, different sorts of improvement protocols... detract from the immutability of the money, or the censorship resistance or the decentralization," Hayes said in an interview with YouTuber Tom Bilyeu.

The positive news on the possible approval of spot Bitcoin ETF filings pushed the price of Bitcoin up.

The world's first-ever crypto asset was trading up at $26,903.51 as of 5:55 a.m. ET Sunday – with a 24-hour trading volume down by 66.64% at $4,826,026,250, which represents a 0.1% increase in the last 24 hours and a 3.7% loss over the past seven days.

Bitcoin's total circulating supply stands at 19,514,250 million tokens, with its value up by 0.10% to a $524,992,528,347 market cap, according to data from CoinMarketCap.