Bitcoin and Cryptos Rally, Unfazed by BlackRock ETF Worries

Bitcoin (BTC) and the broader crypto market held on to their recent gains on Tuesday, with Bitcoin appearing to hold support above the $31,000 level.

As of Tuesday at press time, BTC traded just north of $31,000, up 1.2% for the past 24 hours, while Ethereum’s native ETH token was more or less unchanged over the same period, trading at $1,960.

Most other major coins were also little changed for the past 24 hours, holding on to their gains from late June.

On a 7-day basis, the best performer among the top 100 cryptoassets by market capitalization was decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Compound’s COMP token, which rose close to 58%.

The token was followed by MakerDAO’s governance token MKR, which gained 49% over the same time period.

Confusion around BlackRock’s ETF filing

The strong performance by major cryptoassets in recent days has come despite concerns and speculation surrounding asset management giant BlackRock’s filing for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Initially, the concerns were focused on a Wall Street Journal article that claimed staffers at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had said the filings were not “clear and comprehensive” enough.

Then, the various ETF issuers that had applied to list a spot Bitcoin ETF, including Fidelity, WisdomTree, VanEck and Invesco, all re-submitted their applications with updated information about the crypto exchange they would work with, as requested by the SEC.

All of the ETF providers named Coinbase as the exchange they would work with.

MORE: Fidelity, WisdomTree, VanEck and Invesco/Galaxy have all re-filed their spot bitcoin ETF applications, naming Coinbase as the exchange. Nothing from BlackRock or ARK yet. pic.twitter.com/txkWXB0dBS

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) June 30, 2023

What concerned the market later was why BlackRock re-submitted its filing so much later than all the other applicants, leading some to speculate that the firm had lost interest in a Bitcoin ETF.

However, things turned out not to be as bad as some had assumed, with information later surfacing that BlackRock had indeed re-filed on June 29 but Nasdaq had not updated its website to reflect that.

“They just added Coinbase like everyone else,” Bloomberg’s Balchunas pointed out was the only thing that stood out about the re-filing.

JUST IN: BlackRock has re-filed for spot bitcoin ETF, the resubmission was dated 6/29, Nasdaq just posted tho. They just added Coinbase like everyone else. pic.twitter.com/UGq46DdLgu

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) July 3, 2023