Last week, the crypto community saw an attempted setback in its march toward mass adoption.
I say “attempted” because when you pull back the lens, you’ll see the outcome is a forgone conclusion in favor of massive, global crypto adoption.
On June 30, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pushed back against a wave of spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications.
According to reports, the SEC considers applications filed by Wall Street titans BlackRock and Fidelity to be “inadequate.”
This wasn’t the agency saying no to a bunch of second- and third-tier “crypto bro” friendly players. This was the SEC saying no to the entrenched Wall Street establishment.
The agency claims the ETFs don’t do a good enough job to prevent manipulation of bitcoin prices in the “spot” market.
The spot market is where actual BTC trades hands versus the futures market where people trade “paper” claims on bitcoin.
This has always been a nonsensical argument because the reference price for the bitcoin futures market is already set by the spot market.
Therefore, if the SEC wanted to remain consistent in its reasoning, it would never have approved a bitcoin futures ETF back in October 2021.
So why did the SEC approve a bitcoin futures ETF but thus far refused to approve a spot bitcoin ETF?
My best guess at this point is that with a spot bitcoin ETF, “actual” bitcoin will be purchased and put into storage versus an exchange issuing a futures contract.
The difference is important because a spot purchase removes bitcoin from the market, and a futures purchase doesn’t.
Here’s why that matters to you: According to crypto data firm Glassnode, 68% of all bitcoin hasn’t moved in a year.
And according to blockchain analysis company Chainalysis, up to 3.8 million bitcoin have been lost forever. That leaves just about 5 million BTC in the actual tradeable float.
Five million bitcoin has a current value of about $152 billion.
That sounds like a lot… But it’s only $35 billion more than what Apple made in the fourth quarter of 2022.
And it’s a spit in the ocean compared to an estimated $431 trillion in traditional and non-traditional assets around the globe.
The SEC knows once we have a bitcoin ETF the price of bitcoin will go parabolic, and there’s nothing and no one that will be able to stop it.
The whole world will finally have an easy, secure, and low-cost way to own history’s greatest investment asset.
If I made my living solely from the traditional financial market, I’d be scared too.
So I understand why the SEC has been dragging its feet for 10 years on approving a spot bitcoin ETF.
I’m here to tell you the SEC has finally met its match.
Get Ready for the Establishment Civil War
Nasdaq filed the bitcoin ETF application on behalf of BlackRock. And the CBOE Group filed the application on behalf of Fidelity.
Since this story broke on June 30, both companies have already refiled their bitcoin spot applications revealing more details on how the two exchanges will monitor the spot price of bitcoin on behalf of their respective ETF clients to prevent manipulation.
Friends, Nasdaq and CBOE are two of the biggest, oldest, and most reputable exchanges in the world. They’ve been monitoring markets for decades.
Match those two industry giants with BlackRock and Fidelity, and that’s an establishment syndicate that’s going to be very hard to say no to without destroying your post-SEC career.
The moment the news hit, bitcoin dropped 6% to $29,900. I immediately put out a video to my subscribers letting them know to not lose one wink of sleep over this and to just buy more BTC. (Palm Beach Confidential subscribers can watch it right here.)
As I write bitcoin is already back over $30,400.
Crypto Has Some New, Powerful Allies
In my estimation, the three most powerful men in traditional finance are Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell… JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon… and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.
Powell heads the world’s largest and most important central bank. Dimon runs the world’s largest and most powerful bank. And Fink oversees the world’s largest and most powerful asset manager.
Powell – who can effectively swing the market with a few utterances – once said bitcoin had “no intrinsic value.”
Just last week, he told a congressional committee that “crypto appears to have staying power as an asset class.” He also said, “We see stablecoins as a form of money.”
We all know Dimon’s story. He once called bitcoin a “fraud” and even threatened to fire any employee trading it.
Today, JPMorgan Chase has its own digital currency called JPM Coin. And last month, it issued a report stating, “Retail demand for bitcoin (BTC) is likely to remain strong over the coming year ahead of the next halving.”
Like Dimon, Fink was an anti-bitcoin crusader. In 2017, he called it an “index of money laundering.”
Yet his firm has so completely embraced bitcoin that it’s fighting the SEC to launch its own bitcoin ETF.
Friends, this is no longer a fight between SEC head Gary Gensler and the young, immature crypto community.
He’s now going up against some of the most powerful and wealthiest players on Wall Street who oversee tens of trillions of dollars.
That’s what I mean when I say a new establishment civil war is under way.
And who do you think wins in a war where Gensler faces off against the combined might of Nasdaq, CBOE, BlackRock and Fidelity?
You do the math.
To me it’s a simple bet. I’m betting the political power and combined greed of Wall Street’s most established firms will overcome the protests of Gensler, who history will view as a low-level obstructionist functionary.
Let the Game Come to You!
Big T
P.S. In the coming days, we could witness what I’m calling the “Biden Shock.” If you’re not prepared for it, you could put your financial freedom at risk.
That’s why I recently put together a new blueprint to protect yourself – and potentially profit – from this new dollar regime.