BTC Futures ETFs will be next year at the earliest, says Rosenbluth

While Bloomberg analysts are giving October approval of at least one of the BTC Futures ETF applications up to 75% chance, CFRA’s Senior Director of ETF fund research, Todd Rosenbluth thinks the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will eventually postpone its verdicts on the matter until next year.

The SEC currently has four BTC Futures ETF applications on the table, which it must comment on in the coming days. He must give his opinion on the ProShares application no later than on Monday, and gradually he must also comment on the applications from Invesco, VanEck, Valkyrie and Galaxy Digital until 1 November.

However, the SEC verdict on these applications may not be a definite yes or a definitive no. Since they were filed just a few weeks ago, the SEC may simply take another time to think.

Rosenbluth said during an interview with CNBC on Tuesday that, although he agrees that BTC futures ETFs are likely to be approved rather than traditional spot BTC ETFs, he expects to postpone the verdict until later on the grounds that “A cloudy regulatory situation may cause further delays”.

Rosenbluth: SEC is likely to approve multiple applications at once

According to Rosenbluth, the SEC will try to avoid possible differences between BTC futures ETFs, to which it will agree, because it will most likely not want to give permission for only one fund, but several, so as not to deter its decision to any particular player. However, if it pursues this strategy, it will have to strive to ensure that all BTC Futures ETF applicants have their applications perfectly optimized. And that can cause delays.

CEO of VanEck, Jan van Eck, which is asking for the BTC Futures ETF, as well as the spot BTC ETF (which will receive a final verdict on November 14 at the latest), thinks the SEC is currently worried about the discrepancy between the actual price of BTC and the prices at which futures contracts are traded. The SEC is also aware that the potential of such funds is too great, and the Commission is therefore particularly careful.

Jan van Eck himself indicated that it would be ideal for the BTC ETF if the SEC had better oversight of the exchanges on which BTC is traded, but this is still not a reality and it is questionable whether it will be able to achieve this goal in the foreseeable future.