Posted:
- Despite Grayscale’s latest legal victory, new challenges arose.
- Whales showed strong interest in Bitcoin, while miner earnings fell.
Grayscale’s recent victory over the SEC brought optimism to the crypto market, with whale interest strong. However, further developments suggested that Grayscale’s legal challenges were far from over.
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The fight continues
On August 29, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the SEC’s denial of converting Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) to a spot Bitcoin ETF. This victory was celebrated by GBTC shareholders and the entire crypto community.
After the court ruling, Grayscale’s legal team sent a letter to the SEC. This letter emphasized that there are no valid reasons to distinguish spot Bitcoin ETFs from Bitcoin futures ETFs, as evidenced by previous SEC rulings.
The letter also highlighted that the Trust’s Rule 19b-4 filing had been pending for an unreasonably long time, which is against the law. Grayscale’s legal team urged the SEC to immediately approve NYSE Arca’s Rule 19b-4 filing, ensuring a level playing field for GBTC’s nearly one million investors.
GBTC is fully prepared to function as an ETF once it has received regulatory approval. But despite this legal filing, Grayscale’s victory may not guarantee Bitcoin’s immediate transformation [BTC] investment landscape.
Institutional interest is on the rise
Moreover, the institutional interest in Bitcoin was not only shown through ETF applications.
In recent months, Bitcoin has attracted significant attention from whales, as evidenced by Glassnode data, which showed the number of addresses holding 10 or more coins hit an all-time high of 157,460 at the time of writing.
This milestone surpassed the previous record of 157,458 set on September 20, 2019.
The growing interest in whales could have far-reaching implications for Bitcoin in the future. In particular, the high accumulation of the king coin could push prices higher. This could also result in the centralization of the cryptocurrency.
Source: Glassnode
Contrary to the positive signs of an increased interest in whales, Bitcoin miners experienced a drop in their earnings. This drop in miners’ incomes was concerning, as miners may have to sell their assets to maintain profitability.
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Such selling pressure may contribute to downward price movements for the king coin.
Source: Blockchain
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $25,747.84, with a marginal decline of 0.07% over the past 24 hours.