- BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF approval signaled a brand new period for cryptocurrency funding choices.
- Elevated liquidity from Bitcoin ETFs might drive funding into memecoins and NFTs.
In current days, vital consideration was drawn to the U.S. Securities and Trade Fee’s (SEC) approval of BlackRock’s proposal to checklist and commerce choices for its spot Bitcoin [BTC] ETF, IBIT.
Permitted on the 20th of September, the SEC fast-tracked the choice, granting the world’s largest asset supervisor the inexperienced mild to checklist these choices.


Supply: www.sec.gov
The approval allowed the choices to be traded on the Nasdaq ISE, LLC, marking a serious milestone in BlackRock’s BTC-related initiatives. This signaled a brand new chapter for cryptocurrency funding choices.
Exec’s nuanced view
Highlighting why BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF stands out because the best choice, Joshua Lim, co-founder of Arbelos Markets, shared insights in a current X thread.
Lim identified a number of key elements that make Blackrock’s BTC ETF one of the best wager within the present market.
He mentioned,
“BTC is a digital-native asset by definition, it’s lots simpler to financialize it and transfer it round for commerce settlements than different commods. IBIT and the opposite ETFs have elevated velocity ensuring in any other case cold-storage-bound BTC accessible for liquid buying and selling.”
Increasing on his argument, Lim emphasised that prime brokers offering margin lending in USD in opposition to BTC collateral might considerably enhance the money provide inside the crypto market.
This elevated liquidity, he suggests, would doubtless discover its method into riskier segments of the ecosystem, with capital transferring from spot bitcoin ETFs into speculative property reminiscent of memecoins and NFTs.
Lim believes this shift might stimulate additional funding in these various property, reshaping the broader crypto panorama.
He additionally added,
“Choices markets on IBIT (and market-maker willingness to bear the danger) will make it simpler to cost the danger inherent in margin lending in opposition to IBIT and make it extra doubtless for prime brokers to lend in opposition to crypto… there can be an altcoin increase.”
Its influence
Now the plain query arises: How will this approval affect the trajectory of the world’s largest cryptocurrency?
To which the ETF Retailer President Nate Geraci replied,


Supply: Nate Geraci/X
Even whereas the approval was nonetheless within the pipeline, Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas believed,


Supply: Eric Balchunas/X
Seeing this big transfer by Blackrock, corporations like Grayscale and Bitwise have additionally been trying to checklist and commerce choices for his or her spot BTC ETFs. This follows the SEC’s approval of 11 spot BTC ETFs in January.
Amid the rising pleasure, Jeff Park, head of alpha methods at Bitwise, supplied a distinct viewpoint of the scenario, and acknowledged,
“Issues will doubtless get wild. In such situations, regulated markets could shut down. However the exceptional factor about Bitcoin is that there’ll at all times be a parallel, decentralized market that may’t be shut down, in contrast to GME—which, as you possibly can think about, will add much more gasoline to the fireplace.”