Marathon chief sees Bitcoin ETF approval as highly likely

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to approve a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on Bitcoin, with a probability of more than 50%, Marathon Digital CEO Fred Till said in an interview with Decrypt.

“I don’t know whether it’s worth making predictions about something like this, since even Larry Fink and BlackRock are trying to obtain approval for a Bitcoin ETF. This suggests that they have quite a high degree of confidence in success,” Till said.

On June 15 BlackRock filed with the SEC an application for a digital-gold-based investment product. Following the financial giant, similar filings came from Valkyrie, Fidelity Investments, WisdomTree and Invesco. However the regulator rejected all filings.

Subsequently, the companies promptly submitted to the agency updated proposals. On July 14 the Commission accepted for consideration the applications from BlackRock, VanEck, Invesco, Fidelity Investments and WisdomTree.

The Marathon chief stressed that approval of a Bitcoin ETF for one organisation is likely to give a green light to the rest.

He also drew attention to the Ethereum futures ETF from Valkyrie. In Till’s view, the instrument’s potential adoption increases the odds for Bitcoin-based investment products as well.

“I think the SEC needs to achieve positive results, otherwise they will be under even more pressure,” the executive concluded.

Earlier, ARK Invest CEO Cathy Wood and Matrixport analysts forecast a positive ruling for several applications.

However, former SEC lawyer John Reed Stark believes the regulator will not approve a Bitcoin ETF for a number of reasons.