There’s no end to the stupidity in crypto but this is a new one.
There’s a report doing the rounds from Matrixport that speculates the SEC will reject the bitcoin spot ETF this month. It’s written by Markus Thielen, their head of research.
It’s clearly speculation but it’s being treated like 1) It’s an actual report 2) There’s some basis to the anaysis.
The whole thing is a single page long, and you can read it here. The entire basis of the report is that the SEC approvals process is “dominated by Democrats” and that “SEC Chair Gensler is not embracing crypto” so it’s “a very long shot” to expect he would approve it.
That’s it.
It’s like a bad tweet from nobody.
Now maybe there’s some after-the-fact blaming on a selloff that might have happened anyway, but if you’re basis is that a bitcoin ETF is coming, I don’t see how this ham-handed report changes that.
Ultimately, I think the bitcoin ETF is a ‘sell the fact’ trade but as we continue to wait for approval, there’s an opportunity to ‘buy the rumor’ on this dip. Then again, any market that would move 6% on a report like this is one bad (true) headline away from a 20% fall.
Update: This gets even better… the same firm had a report out yesterday saying ‘a potential bitcoin spot ETF approval could be announced today or tomorrow’.