By all indications, next Tuesday will be a big day in the lives of cryptocurrency fans. The digital currency devotees will have their first opportunity with Bitcoin futures when the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF makes its debut at the New York Stock Exchange.
However, there is one little catch, according to CNBC. The exchange-traded fund (ETF) will go active unless the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decides it has an objection to the filing, which the agency has up until midnight Monday to raise.
“I would give it a 75% chance of approval,” ETF Trends director of research Dave Nadig said.
Bitcoin futures: good thing or bad thing?
Like anything with cryptocurrency, there’s a myriad of directions a Bitcoin futures ETF could take off in. This particular ETF is based on Bitcoin futures that trade on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which concerns many in the Bitcoin community. If those people had their druthers, they would prefer a pure-play ETF backed by physical bitcoins.
Their biggest gripes with the current plan are that the cost of rolling into futures contracts is too high and isn’t likely to satisfactorily track the spot price of the cryptocurrency. On top of that, some feel that the SEC should proceed to the approval of a pure-play Bitcoin ETF. Despite those concerns, Bitcoin advocates say this may be a small, first step that could lead to a whole new crop of cryptocurrency investors.
“Although we are not fully mainstream yet, crypto is making massive strides in adoption, as evidenced by Coinbase’s 68 million users and the crypto industry’s $2 trillion market cap, Larry Pang, Head of Business Development at IoTeX, said in a comment emailed to ConsumerAffairs.
“As everyday people get comfortable buying and storing crypto for the first time, the next natural evolution is to see people use cryptocurrencies as utility tokens in peer-to-peer networks rather than speculative investment vehicles.”