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<h2>The US securities regulator on Wednesday, 10 January, approved the first US-listed exchange traded funds (ETFs) to track <a href="https://says.com/my/imho/here-s-what-you-need-to-know-about-cryptocurrencies-and-how-to-start-investing-in-malaysia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bitcoin</a>, its chair Gary Gensler said, in a watershed for the world&#8217;s largest cryptocurrency and the broader crypto industry</h2>
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<p><p>The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved 11 applications, including from BlackRock, Ark Investments/21Shares, Fidelity, Invesco, and VanEck, among others, according to a notice on its website. Some products are expected to begin trading as early as Thursday, kicking off a fierce competition for market share.</p>
<p>The products — a decade in the making — are a game-changer for bitcoin, offering institutional and retail investors exposure to the world&#8217;s largest cryptocurrency without directly holding it, and a major boost for a crypto industry beset by a string of scandals.</p>
<p>Standard Chartered analysts this week said the ETFs could draw USD50 billion (RM232 billion) to USD100 billion (RM464 billion) this year alone, potentially driving the price of bitcoin as high as USD100,000 (RM464 billion). Other analysts have said inflows will be closer to USD55 billion  (RM255 billion) over five years.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a huge positive for the institutionalization of bitcoin as an asset class,&#8221; said Andrew Bond, managing director and senior fintech analyst at Rosenblatt Securities. &#8220;The ETF approval will further legitimize bitcoin.&#8221;</p>
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<p class="img-caption">SEC chairman Gary Gensler.</p>
<p>                <small class="img-credit">Image via <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/cop/us-climate-rule-would-save-companies-confusion-foreign-rules-sec-2023-10-26/" rel="noopener">Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters</a></small>
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<h2>Bitcoin was last up 3% at USD47,300 (RM219,000). The cryptocurrency has soared more than 70% in recent months on anticipation of an ETF, and hit its highest level since March 2022 earlier in the week.</h2>
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<p><p>Success in what is expected to be a heated battle to acquire assets for spot&nbsp;bitcoin&nbsp;ETFs&nbsp;will likely center around fees and liquidity, analysts say.</p>
<p>Some issuers undercut their own fees in new filings this week, including BlackRock and Ark/21Shares, emphasizing the urgency with which they are looking to grab a share of the expected capital inflow. Those fees range from 0.2% to 1.5%, with many firms offering to waive fees entirely for a certain period of time.</p>
<p>For short-term speculators, though, liquidity could be more important than fees. The more liquid an ETF, the easier for investors to quickly buy and redeem shares at prices that closely track the actual price of&nbsp;bitcoin.</p>
<p>Companies also expect a flurry of online advertising and other forms of&nbsp;marketing. Some issuers, including Bitwise and VanEck, have already released advertisements touting&nbsp;bitcoin.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is pretty unprecedented, so we&#8217;ll see how it works. I&#8217;ve never been in a situation where 10 of the same ETF was launched on the same day, so this is a new one,&#8221; said Steven McClurg, the chief investment officer at Valkyrie, whose ETF was among those approved on Wednesday.</p>
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<p>                <small class="img-credit">Image via <a target="_blank" href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/secs-bitcoin-etf-debacle-result-082033920.html" rel="noopener">Fox Business via Yahoo! Finance</a></small>
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<h2>A &#8216;milestone&#8217;</h2>
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<p><p>A green light marks a U-turn for the&nbsp;SEC, which for a decade rejected&nbsp;bitcoin&nbsp;ETFs&nbsp;due to worries they could be easily manipulated.&nbsp;SEC&nbsp;chair Gensler is also a fierce&nbsp;crypto&nbsp;skeptic.</p>
<p>Bitcoin&nbsp;ETFs&nbsp;could pave the way for other innovative&nbsp;crypto&nbsp;products, said Jim Angel, an associate professor at Georgetown&#8217;s McDonough School of Business. Several issuers, for example, have already filed for spot ether&nbsp;ETFs&nbsp;to track the price of the&nbsp;second-largest&nbsp;cryptocurrency.</p>
<p>&#8220;Once the dam has been breached, it’s going to be really hard for the&nbsp;SEC&nbsp;to continue its ‘just say no to&nbsp;crypto’ approach,&#8221; said Angel.</p>
<p>Hopes the&nbsp;SEC&nbsp;would finally approve&nbsp;bitcoin&nbsp;ETFs&nbsp;surged last year after a federal appeals court ruled that the agency was wrong to reject an application from Grayscale Investments to convert its existing Grayscale&nbsp;Bitcoin&nbsp;Trust (GBTC) into an ETF. That ruling forced the agency to re-examine its position.</p>
<p>In a statement, Gensler said that in light of the court ruling, approving the products was &#8220;the most sustainable path forward,&#8221; but added the agency did not endorse&nbsp;bitcoin, which is risky and volatile.</p>
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<p>                <small class="img-credit">Image via <a target="_blank" href="https://money.cnn.com/2013/03/13/investing/fidelity-blackrock-etf/index.html" rel="noopener">CNN Business</a></small>
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<h2>The crypto industry celebrated the news</h2>
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<p><p>&#8220;Like many of Grayscale&#8217;s future-forward investors, we believed that&nbsp;bitcoin&nbsp;could change the world, and we were and remain excited at the prospect of democratizing access to this asset through a US regulated investment vehicle,&#8221; said Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein.</p>
<p>Douglas Yones, head of exchange traded products at the New York Stock Exchange, where some products will be listed, said the approval was also an important &#8220;milestone&#8221; for the ETF industry.</p>
<p>Cynthia Lo Bessette, head of digital asset management at Fidelity, said the new products should provide &#8220;increased choice for investors who want to engage with&#8221;&nbsp;crypto.</p>
<p>The approvals come a day after an unauthorized person published a fake post on the&nbsp;SEC’s account on social media platform X, saying the agency had approved the new products for trading. The agency quickly disavowed and deleted the post.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, it said it is coordinating with law enforcement including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the&nbsp;SEC&#8217;s own internal watchdog to investigate the incident.</p>
<p>Further confusion ensued on Wednesday afternoon when the&nbsp;SEC&nbsp;posted a notice on its website appearing to show that the&nbsp;ETFs&nbsp;had been approved but then removed it, only to <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/gensler-statement-spot-bitcoin-011023" title="Link: https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/gensler-statement-spot-bitcoin-011023">repost it again</a>.</p>
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<h2>Here&#8217;s how you can start investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies:</h2>
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US SEC Approves 11 Bitcoin ETF Applications From BlackRock, Fidelity & Others