On Wednesday bitcoin prices were averaging at $6,500 for the better half of the day but towards the evening, it proved that it couldn’t hold up as it dragged further below to reach around $6,200.
The good news- if they can be called so- is that the rest of the market has held up and most altcoins have not had massive slips since the Tuesday sell-off, however, the market has slipped to about 224 billion.
This slip marked a three-week low for bitcoin and if investors were not panicking before, now they sure are. But, are investors just overreacting? And should an ETF decision have so much power of the price of bitcoin-and by large the crypto market? Well, it shouldn’t and Personally, I think investors are just overreacting over the decision.
The sell-off witnessed on Tuesday was nothing short of an overreaction by investors after expectations were rose too high on the ETF decision.
The SEC might not regulate bitcoin as a security but this recent bloodbath has proven something new, they control it -they have the power to make it or break it. The recent plummet has been caused by a mere delay of an ETF decision from August 10 to August 30, so it’s scary to imagine how volatile these prices will be leading up to the decision and its outright horror to think of what will happen if the SEC decides to reject the ETF proposal.
According to a legal expert, Jake Chervinsky, the SEC could further extend this delay all the way to March 2019. Taking his argument to Twitter, Jake says that the SEC has the power to push the ETF decision deadline up to 3 times;
“This means the real deadline for the SEC to approve or deny an ETF is 240 days after it files notice in the Federal Register (45+45+90+60),”
Chervinsky believes that the SEC will not approve the first bitcoin ETF without taking all the time provided by law, and as many experts have seen a great prospect on the CBOE proposal being approved, we might be in for a rough ride up to March. According to some experts, the delay is actually a good sign, and it shows that the SEC is seriously considering approving the proposal.
So far, the market is bleeding and it’s hard to see the announcement that can redeem the spirit for a bullish rally. However, there is still optimism that the SEC will approve the CBOE ETF proposal which could take market prices to their glory days.
A few weeks ago, when the SEC rejected the Winklevoss brothers’ proposal, one of the commissioners-Hester M. Price- was vocal, raising her disagreement with the SEC decision. This was a real sign that the commission was shifting its ground and there is reason to believe that the first bitcoin ETF is just around the corner.
