Steven Schoenfeld, former head of International Equity Product Strategy at Barclays Global Investors (now Blackrock), expects the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve all spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications in three to six months. He also anticipates that the greenlighting of spot bitcoin and ethereum ETFs has the potential to inject between $150 billion and $200 billion of capital into these investment products.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs Could Be Approved in 3-6 Months
Steven Schoenfeld, CEO of Marketvector Indexes, shared his view on the potential for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) during a panel discussion at the Ccdata Digital Asset Summit on Tuesday.
Schoenfeld is a 36-year veteran of the investment management industry, having served in senior fiduciary positions at Northern Trust. He was also Managing Director and Head of International Equity Product Strategy at Barclays Global Investors (now Blackrock), where he managed more than $70 billion in developed and emerging market stock index funds and ETFs. Previously, he also led the team at the IFC/World Bank which developed the first investable Emerging Market indexes.
Regarding the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S., he predicted:
It’s very likely that all will be approved.
“The AUM potential could double or triple the current amount of AUM in current bitcoin products,” he added.
Regarding the SEC’s potential approval timeline for a spot bitcoin ETF, he remarked: “Two weeks ago I would have said nine to 12 months away.” However, he emphasized:
Sitting here today I would say it’s closer to three to six months.
“For the first time, it was just last week, the SEC, instead of completely rejecting the whole list [of spot bitcoin ETF applications], they’ve actually asked for comments which is a marginal but significant improvement in the dialogue,” he opined.
“There’s also the Grayscale lawsuit which the SEC lost, which means they are most likely going to have to allow the Grayscale GBTC to be converted into an ETF,” the executive noted.
He described: “The sheer size of the U.S. institutional market, financial advisor market, self-directed retail investors — it’s enormous, and to have a product that will be accessible to them … the assets will move into these products.”
Schoenfeld continued, “We’ve estimated using some of the statistics that came from when the gold ETF was launched in 2004,” elaborating:
If anything close to that occurs with bitcoin, and potentially ethereum spot ETFs, this could be $150 [billion] to $200 billion of inflow into these products.
He clarified that the inflow is expected to happen over three years. “That’s three to four times the size of the current product set for listed bitcoin so that will be very significant,” he said.
The former Barclays Global Investors executive is not the only one expecting the SEC to approve all spot bitcoin ETF applications simultaneously. JPMorgan recently said that it expects the regulator to approve multiple spot bitcoin ETFs at once. Meanwhile, a number of Congress members have urged the SEC to “immediately” approve spot bitcoin ETFs, stating that there is no reason to deny these applications. Several analysts have predicted that the SEC will approve the first spot bitcoin ETF by mid-March next year. Former SEC Chair Jay Clayton said last month that institutional investors clearly want access to BTC, emphasizing that the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs is “inevitable.”
Do you think the SEC will approve all spot bitcoin ETF applications in three to six months? Let us know in the comments section below.
