It was largely expected in the market that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission wasn’t going to bring the Christmas early for Hodlers. In their latest decision on the Bitcoin ETF, the department decided to kick the can further down the road, using the same lame excuse of needing to gather more information.
On May 20, the SEC delayed its decision on the VanEck bitcoin ETF and added another 35-day period for factfinding. The SEC’s decision should not be taken as a negative sign for two reasons: firstly, they have not denied the approval, so there is still hope. And secondly, the SEC wants to gauge the public opinion on the matter, and the only reason Bitcoin is still alive today is because of the massive support it has among its community.
Thus, it may be appropriate to think that approval of a Bitcoin ETF is only a matter of time and that the day isn’t too far away when the sun will shine. In other words, bears need to recalibrate their thinking. The fact is that the SEC in no rush to take any hasty steps in relation to the approval of the Bitcoin ETF. They can continue to keep kicking the can down the road as many times as they like. This is because there is no hard and fast rule for such. For the SEC, the most important thing is to take appropriate measures in order to reduce risk to the financial system. Thus, to achieve this, if they have to delay the approval process, so it be.
For now, the SEC is going to remain in the information gathering mode and they will continue to assess the volatility of Bitcoin. Speaking of volatility, one major use case for Bitcoin futures among professional traders is that they utilize Bitcoin futures in market neutral strategy. What I mean by that is when these professional traders are involved in Credit Default Swaps products and their strategy is market neutral, they use Bitcoin futures to increase the delta in their strategy and this enables them to earn money due to higher volatility.
Remember, it wasn’t long ago when Bitcoin futures hit the record level of 33,700 contracts with a notional value of nearly $1.23 billion and this happened on the heal of higher volatility. It is also important to keep in mind that Bitcoin isn’t a beast which is known for its higher volatility only because there is a strong evidence of suppressed volatility period as well. In fact, there had been a few periods when Bitcoin’s volatility was lower than the NASDAQ index.
For the last few days, especially after the Consensus event over in New York, we have witnessed lower volatility for Bitcoin, and it appears that the price has entered in a consolidation mode. For now, the resistance of $8,300 is strong and the price needs a strong catalyst to continue its move towards the 10K level.
Nonetheless, the major question is how any pending SEC decision could impact the price of Bitcoin in the future?
Well, there are three scenarios which are of significant importance: firstly, if the SEC continues to keep delaying the decision, it is likely that the price will remain in some sort of range. Basically, more of the consolidation period. Secondly, if and when, the SEC delivers a negative verdict on the ETF, it is likely to push the price lower and the previous support levels will gain the most amount of attention. These major support levels are $6,000, $5,000, $4,000 and $3,130.And finally, if the SEC decides that it is about time to let things go and turn on the green light for the Bitcoin ETF, it could create a major FOMO among investors which could lead the price ripping to the upside.
