The beleaguered crypto world finally got some good news. After weeks of the most intense regulatory crackdown in history came the news that BlackRock—the biggest asset manager in the world—is pushing further into crypto with an application to run a Bitcoin ETF. This is a potential game changer for the industry and a development that, for a day at least, changes the doom-and-gloom narrative for crypto.
If approved, the ETF could open the door for pension funds and other conservative institutions—many of which are subject to bylaws restricting what assets they can hold—to add Bitcoin shares to their portfolio. This would, in turn, add additional diversity and liquidity to the market, and likely goose the price of Bitcoin and other crypto assets.
This promise of investors pouring into crypto has been a popular prediction for years (“the institutions are coming”) and has mostly been a mirage. But BlackRock’s enormous size and blue-chip pedigree could mean that this time it’s finally for real.
There is of course the little matter of the Securities and Exchange Commission, whose chairman appears eager to burn the crypto industry to the ground. The SEC could simply reject BlackRock’s ETF bid as it has a dozen other Bitcoin ETF applications, but something feels different this time. As Bloomberg put it, BlackRock is “as good as it gets at reading the regulatory tea leaves” and no doubt senses that it is better poised than others to get the green light. This is especially the case since, as a source familiar with the bid tells me, the proposed ETF would rely on Nasdaq to price the assets—making it even harder for the SEC to maintain its already flimsy argument a Bitcoin spot market ETF could be subject to pricing chicanery.
There’s also the question of where all this leaves Grayscale, owner of a giant Bitcoin trust, which is waiting for an appeals court to rule on whether the SEC’s decision to deny its own ETF bid was arbitrary and unfair. Based on a disastrous hearing for the agency, analysts expect Grayscale to win the case. If that happens, it’s an open question if the company will become a big player in a new crypto ETF market, or just get steamrolled by bigger and better-known BlackRock.
In the short term, BlackRock’s ETF application is not going to end the crypto industry’s struggles—especially as everyone expects more big shoes to drop on the regulatory front, including a criminal complaint against Binance. But it does provide a rare bit of good news and is a useful reminder that crypto is not going anywhere and will only grow in the long term.
A couple of quick programming notes to end the week: Fortune Crypto will be off on Monday for the Juneteenth holiday. Meanwhile, I will be pulling up stakes from the high mountains of Colorado to begin a new chapter in beautiful Southern California near Dana Point. As greater Los Angeles has become a hotbed of crypto, I look forward to meeting some of you in real life in the coming months. In the short term, this also means I will be off next week, leaving you in the capable hands of my colleagues, Leo and Marco. Enjoy your weekend.
Jeff John Roberts
jeff.roberts@fortune.com
@jeffjohnroberts
