The US Securities and Exchange Commission has delayed its decision on a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposal from Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, the world’s largest digital currency manager.
In a notice, the markets regulator said it now expects to review Grayscale’s proposal by February 6, later than the original December deadline.
In October, Grayscale, which has over $45 billion of cryptocurrency assets under management, had said it plans to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into a spot bitcoin ETF.
A recent paper said change in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust premium is the single most significant predictor of bitcoin daily return.
‘Reflect Excess Demand’
“This sentiment measure is similar to the closed-end fund discount measure … but more likely to reflect the excess demand from traditional investors than from blockchain specialists,” Hong Kong researchers concluded.
Although there is a substantial variation in bitcoin price quotes worldwide, the Grayscale premium and discount predict bitcoin daily return for the most liquid crypto exchanges, according to the study led by Lei Huang, Tse-Chun Lin and Fangzhou Lu of the University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Business and Economics.
“These findings suggest that bitcoin prices react with a delay to the information contained in the sentiment of traditional investors and investors who are constrained from directly holding bitcoin,” they added.
The first US bitcoin futures-based exchange-traded fund also began trading in October, taking bitcoin’s price to a six-month high.
However, the cryptocurrency has since eased and was trading at $45,680.86 late on Saturday morning Hong Kong time, down more than 4% in the previous 24 hours.
- Reuters, with George Russell
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