Bitcoin dropped sharply on the 15th anniversary of the coin’s first block.
BTCUSD – Daily Chart
After reaching levels near $46,000, the price of BTC slumped to $42,500. The coming days could define whether a more significant pullback is in play.
“Bitcoin is trading like an ETF is about to be approved,” analyst Scott Melker posted to X.
Fox Business Network’s Charles Gasparino claimed recent BlackRock leaks suggest the SEC will remain silent until the agency has reviewed all the paperwork, with “the announcement likely toward week’s end.”
Bitcoin has been surging toward the $50,000 level on the expectation that the SEC will approve an ETF from BlackRock and spark an institutional rally in the coin.
Bitcoin’s first-ever block, the Genesis Block, was minted on January 3, 2009. This week saw the coin drop $4,000 on the anniversary of that date.
Some traders may get cold feet and take profits before the expected announcement. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has repeatedly denied applications for a spot in the Bitcoin ETF. However, the latest efforts are widely expected to succeed.
Goldman Sachs’ Matthew McDermott thinks approval will spread to other coins such as Ethereum, XRP, and Solana.
“I fully expect a significant growth in adoption from the buy side next year,” McDermott said. “Then I think probably towards the latter end of the year, probably the following and beyond; you’ll start to see kind of a focus on some of these more opaque asset classes where the value proposition probably is kind of greater just purely because of the opaqueness in pricing, probably less liquidity and most transparency”.
Arthur Hayes, founder of the Bitmex crypto exchange, must be more convinced about the ETF.
“If ETFs managed by asset managers are too successful, they will destroy Bitcoin”.
Hayes said that if BlackRock, which is in “the asset accumulation game,” vacuums up all the Bitcoin, there will be no more bitcoin transactions and those who secure the bitcoin network in return for fees and newly minted bitcoin, known as miners, “would be unable to afford the energy it costs to secure the network. As a result, they would shut off their machines. Without the miners, the network dies, and bitcoin vanishes”.
