Crypto trudges on

Nearly two years after it was first approved, Jacobi Asset Management's spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), the Jacobi FT Wilshire Bitcoin ETF, has finally started trading. Jacobi is based in London. The fund lists on Euronext Amsterdam. It's regulated by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission (GFSC). And it trades under the ticker BCOIN.

Exchange-traded notes (ETNs), a sub-category of a wider sleeve known as exchange-traded products (ETPs), are common in Europe; and there are several BTC-related ETPs, as CoinDesk noted; however, Jacobi's offering has the distinction of being Europe's first spot BTC ETF.

Meanwhile, a U.S. judge could rule, possibly today, on a case involving Grayscale Investment's bid to convert its BTC Trust vehicle (GBTC) into an ETF.

Last June, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected Grayscale’s application. Grayscale in turn sued the regulator. By failing to apply consistent treatment to similar investment vehicles, claims Grayscale, the SEC acted arbitrarily.

The possibility of spot BTC ETFs being blessed – and knock-on crypto floodgate effects – has been teasing the industry since earlier this spring when BlackRock, a large, powerful, tea-leaf-fluent money manager like a bolt from the blue filed for SEC permission to launch such a product.

ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood has predicted Grayscale will win its lawsuit. An ARK 21Shares application to list a spot BTC ETF last week was put on ice by the SEC which on Friday filed paperwork saying it needed more time to review the application – first filed in June of 2021 (Decrypt).

BTC was doing its trapped-in-a-box mime routine (0.0% in 24 hours) when we checked the charts at 8:10 a.m. (EST). Among Big Ten coins, Solana has a shred of a groove on, up 1.6% in the past day.

And yes, we see you THORchain (RUNE) up 62% in the past week.

Total crypto assets are slightly down. No single digital asset is getting utterly creamed. Screaming memecoins have calmed down. For example, Shiba Inu lost 3% since this time yesterday but SHIB remains +13% on the week. A DeFi stalwart, Chainlink, fell 3% but LINK is fairly flat over seven days.

A couple of coins are dented by double-digits, percentage-wise, on the week. Optimism and Kaspa fit this description.

Bitcoin is in a rut. That's for sure. The rest is speculation.

Some movement on the spot ETF front could be a catalyst for some movement in the crypto markets; and there's always that BTC rewards halving set for early 2024.

As for the latter event, it becomes a question of whether the market will price in such a supply reduction. BTC champion/author Jesse Myers believes it will. But any related rally won't happen until after the fact, adds Myers (Cointelegraph).

Credit downgrades could create banking turmoil which could open the door to crypto getting yet another look as a safe haven.

Coinbase and the SEC settling their scores could tee up a sense of regulatory clarity coming around the bend.

Macro winds may well shift. Coinbase analysts think so.

The investment case for BTC could be compelling as investors look to navigate some of the current uncertainties in the global macro landscape, Coinbase (COIN) said in a recent research report.

Structural factors affecting inflation are changing with the advent of new technologies such as generative AI, and which might kick off a new era of loose monetary policy, the Coinbase report said (CoinDesk).

“We believe the combined effect of expansionary fiscal and monetary policies should support BTC long term as a hedge against fiat debasement and profligate spending,” wrote David Duong, head of institutional research at Coinbase.

Morgan Stanley sort of echoed this sentiment in a report last week, predicting AI will be transformational across industries and represents one of the most important secular investment themes looking out over the next decade. Additionally, another Wall Street giant, Goldman Sachs, predicts AI adoption will measurably impact the U.S. economy starting around 2025. It's a scenario that bodes well for BTC which is “not only a technologically innovative instrument but a financially innovative one,” the Goldman Sachs note said.

And what distinguishes BTC is that it is a “globally accessible, decentralized, supranational asset with a fixed supply.”