With the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs imminent, the question now is when. Investment firm CEOs are confident the landmark decision will come down on Wednesday. On Tuesday, VanEck CEO Jan van Eck suggested that his firm’s Bitcoin ETF could start trading on Thursday, lending credence to speculation that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will begin approving the various ETFs on Wednesday.
“We have precedent... that's what happened with Ethereum futures ETFs," van Eck said during a panel hosted by CNBC’s Bob Pisani. “[The Ethereum Futures] were all approved to launch on the same day. And I think the SEC, at a high-level policy wise, doesn't want to advantage any particular ETF issuer, so this is a fair way of dealing with that.
Over ten spot Bitcoin ETFs are awaiting final approval by the SEC to begin trading. While the different investment funds may compete with each other, van Eck says the approval of ETFs will be good for everyone.
“I don't think this is going to be a winner-take-all market, by the way. I think market share will be distributed,” van Eck said. “There'll be a lot of winners, and that's fine, that’s great.”
Van Eck noted that while short-term market positioning is ahead of the upcoming approval, investors may be overlooking other favorable scenarios for Bitcoin, including the upcoming halving and the Federal Reserve halting interest rate increases, saying that Bitcoin and gold are poised to gain as stores of value.
Along with predicting the imminent launch of its spot Bitcoin ETF, van Eck reiterated the company’s pledge to donate a portion of proceeds from the ETF to Bitcoin Core developers.
“There are a lot of developers that have worked for free to build the Bitcoin network and continue to add and make changes to that network, and we want to pay respect to those developers,” he said. “So we're giving part of our profits that we're making off of this ETF.”
Confident in the investing potential of Bitcoin, van Eck likened the digital asset to gold, saying it's time for investors to start thinking about where to put the number one cryptocurrency.
“Some investors just don't care about store value investing, but if you do, my point is that Bitcoin is a complement to gold,” van Eck told CNBC. “There have been other complements to gold, silver, platinum, palladium over the decades. So this is just a compliment. So let's start there and thinking about where to put it in your portfolio.”
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.