Grayscale v. SEC: Who Won This Week’s Hearing?

Elliott Stein, senior litigation analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, shares his insights from a court hearing this week on the SEC’s rejection of Grayscale’s bid to convert GBTC into a spot bitcoin ETF. Stein says federal appellate court judges seemed skeptical of the SEC’s arguments for why bitcoin futures ETFs are OK while bitcoin spot ETFs aren’t. Who’s likely to win the case and what does it mean for the crypto industry as a whole?

Show highlights:

• why Grayscale filed the lawsuit against the SEC
• why Grayscale believes that a bitcoin futures ETF is essentially the same as a spot ETF
• what the SEC disagrees
• why the judges pushed back against the SEC’s arguments
• why Elliott changed his mind about who will win the case after the hearing
• what would happen if Grayscale ends up winning the lawsuit and whether the SEC could go back on its previous approvals
• whether other companies applying for a bitcoin spot ETF would benefit from Grayscale winning the case
• whether this case could have an impact on the jurisdictional battle between the SEC and the CFTC
• why Elliott is keeping an eye on other cases such as Ripple, Terraform Labs, and insider trading at Coinbase

Thank you to our sponsors!

• Crypto.com
• Railgun DAO

Previous coverage of Unchained on Grayscale and GBTC:

• Why Grayscale Is Suing the SEC Over Its Denial of a Bitcoin ETF
• $5 Billion in AUM: Why Growth at Grayscale Exploded in the Last Quarter
• Bitwise’s Latest Plans to Get a Bitcoin ETF Approved
• DCG’s Dilemma: Should It Sell Its GBTC Holdings to Repay Gemini?
• Gemini vs. DCG Is Heating Up. Could Gemini Force Genesis Into Bankruptcy?
• ‘The Last Big Whale’: Why the Crypto Contagion of 2022 Eventually Hit Genesis

Guest

Elliott Stein, Senior Litigation Analyst for the Financials Sector at Bloomberg Intelligence

• Twitter

Links

• CoinDesk:
• Judges Express Skepticism of SEC Arguments in Grayscale Bitcoin ETF Hearing
• A Dozen Reasons Why the SEC Should Have Approved Grayscale’s Spot Bitcoin ETF
• Axios: Judges question SEC rejection of Grayscale’s spot bitcoin ETF
• Reuters: US court questions SEC’s rejection of Grayscale’s bitcoin fund proposal
• Don Verrilli

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