The last month or so has been fairly tumultuous. The crypto market has more or less been sitting on pins and jumping at every negative rumor surrounding the approval of the Bitcoin ETFs. But now they are approved, and the price of Bitcoin has barely moved. Let's try and figure out the possible reasons behind it.
The price crash with negative news
There have been two instances where the market jumped in response to negative ETF news. The first was the report from Matrixport, in which they claimed the Bitcoin ETFs would get rejected come January. And with that report, the market dipped ~10%. The second one was when the official SEC twitter account got hacked, and put out a tweet saying the Bitcoin ETFs would be denied. This happened on the 9th, so the day before the announcement deadline. This caused a crash in price of ~9%.
We then have two events that were negative and both triggered a similar-sized response. This could simply mean that the price of Bitcoin has been adjusted to the impact of the Bitcoin ETFs. The fact that both events triggered a similar-sized response. the fact that one of them actually being the official SEC giving the news would lend credence to this theory. I at least would have expected a much more volatile response from the market for the negative SEC news compared to the Matrixport report that came out in December. But again as both events had the same size response this could very well mean that the Bitcoin ETF approval already has been priced in by the market.
They have not started buying Bitcoin
Another reason for the price of Bitcoin staying more r less the same, despite the approval of the Bitcoin ETF could very well be the fact that it takes a little time for the companies to get everything in order for them to start buying Bitcoin. And thus the expected wave, no tsunami of new money has not hit the market yet. And with no influx of added demand, the price would more or less stay the same.
Sorry, we already bought all the Bitcoins we needed
They have already bought all the Bitcoin they need
This is a very similar argument to "they have not started buying", but still very different. This would mean the companies running the Bitcoin ETFs already have bought all the Bitcoins they need. The vast difference is that both of them keep the price the same to start off. If they already have bought the majority of Bitcoin they need. This would mean no new buy pressure getting added. Or at least very little new. Compared to the amount getting added with all the Bitcoin ETFs having to buy all the Bitcoins from scratch.
So which one is the correct one? Well, that is hard to say. I think the most likely scenario is that all of them are correct to some extent. I think the market has adjusted slightly in anticipation of the approval. But I do not think that the market has priced it in 100%. I also think they already have some Bitcoin already bought, but I do expect them to have to buy a fair bit more.
But I would love to hear what you think about this. What would you say is the main reason the price has not surged? Have I missed some factors I should have taken into account, if so please let me know what they are. As always the comment section is all yours.
If you would like to support me and the content I make, please consider following me, reading my other posts, or why not do both instead.
https://medium.com/@bo.daniel.jensen
See you on the interwebs!
Picture provided by: https://pixabay.com/