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GBTC daily trading volume surges by 400%, is Grayscale expected to win the lawsuit?

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Grayscale expresses dissatisfaction with SEC's approval of leveraged Bitcoin futures ETF, believing that there is differential treatment between spot and futures products.

Original Title: "Gray-scale scolds SEC's double standard: allowing 'Bitcoin leveraged ETF' to have higher risk than spot!"

Original Source: BlockTempo from Dynamic Zone

Following the applications for Bitcoin spot ETFs by Wall Street giants last month, Bitcoin also welcomed the first leveraged Bitcoin futures ETF in the United States at the end of the month, proposed by Volatility Shares. Volatility Shares stated that the application for the leveraged Bitcoin ETF, BITX, was not rejected by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), so it officially launched on June 27th.

Gray-scale non-full difference treatment

Grayscale Investments, the asset management company that owns the Bitcoin Trust Fund (GBTC), has repeatedly applied to the SEC to convert it into a spot ETF, but has been ignored and rejected multiple times. They are quite unhappy with the SEC's approval of leveraged Bitcoin ETFs.

Gray-scale lawyer Donald Verrilli said in a letter submitted to the District of Columbia Appeals Court on Monday that leveraged Bitcoin exchange-traded funds are clearly "higher-risk investment products," and criticized the SEC's move as simply untenable.

SEC allows open trading of leveraged Bitcoin futures trading products, indicating that SEC still has biases when dealing with spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products, and takes differential treatment of Bitcoin futures trading products.

SEC and Grayscale have been in a continuous legal battle over the "GBTC to Bitcoin Spot ETF" since last year. Donald Verrilli previously presented a core argument in court, stating that Grayscale has signed a futures ETF supervision agreement and that the SEC can effectively regulate ETF products. At the same time, Grayscale's launch of a Bitcoin spot ETF is "better for protecting investors".

Grayscale clarified its position on Twitter, stating that they did not say such products should not exist. Instead, they wanted to point out the contradiction in the SEC's stance, as the SEC cannot reject approval of spot products without sufficient reason, while allowing leveraged futures products to be traded.

Now backed by numerous institutions

Now, with giants like BlackRock and Fidelity submitting proposals to the SEC to launch Bitcoin spot ETFs in mid-June, GBTC's daily trading volume surged to nearly $80 million just five days after BlackRock's application, an increase of about 400%.

According to data from Coinglass, the total position of Grayscale's grayscale fund currently stands at $19 billion, while GBTC's negative premium has narrowed to 27.49%, a recovery of about 21.13% from the highest negative premium rate in December 2022 (when the negative premium reached 48.62%).

It is reported that GBTC issued by Grayscale began to experience negative premium at the end of February 2021, and the ratio continued to expand after entering the bear market in 2022, until the negative premium gradually stabilized this year (2023). Many well-known investors in the market are optimistic about the future development of GBTC and believe that Grayscale is likely to win the lawsuit against SEC. "Stock Queen" Cathie Wood has repeatedly praised the future growth of GBTC and expects it to return to a positive premium. Her Ark Investment is also the largest holder of GBTC.