First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Retreats Slightly; FTX Receives Bids for Restart

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Bitcoin is down slightly Wednesday after dropping more than 3% from its perch near $35,000 late Tuesday morning as the ticker for BlackRock's (BLK) spot bitcoin ETF – IBTC – was removed from the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation's (DTCC) website. The ticker's appearance on the DTCC site – rightly or wrongly – had investors speculating about imminent approval for a spot bitcoin ETF, thus playing a factor in BTC's sharp gain from the $30,000 area to more than $35,000. The cryptocurrency was trading at around $34,200 at the time of writing and was still up over 20% over the last seven days. “What we are potentially seeing is a permanent thawing of so-called ‘crypto winters.’,” said Diogo Monica, co-founder and president of Anchorage Digital. “While the digital asset market will always have bulls and bears, institutional adoption is pushing us closer to perpetual spring.”

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has received multiple bids for a potential restart, investment banker Kevin Cofsky of Perella Weinberg Partners said Tuesday during a court hearing. At least three bidders are in the running to buy the exchange, which traded tens of billions of dollars a day at its peak. A decision could potentially be made by mid-December, as part of plans to be submitted to the Delaware bankruptcy court for approval. Cofsky's testimony contributed to a successful bid to keep the platform’s list of over 9 million customers secret, given that such information might prove valuable to a potential buyer. “We’ve narrowed the field from a large number to a smaller number in what we’re calling our second round,” Cofsky said at the court hearing, referring to the parties with whom he's discussing wind-up options. “I am optimistic that we will have either a plan for a reorganized exchange, a partnership agreement or a stalking horse for a sale, on or prior to the December 16 milestone date.”

Spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) could attract at least $14.4 billion of inflows in the first year of issuance, crypto fund Galaxy Digital said in a research note on Tuesday. An ETF could be a better investment vehicle for investors compared to currently offered products, such as trusts and futures, which hold over $21 billion in value, the fund said. The inflows could ramp up by $27 billion by the second year and $39 billion by the third year, it added. “The U.S. wealth management industry will likely be the most addressable and direct market that would have the most net new accessibility from an approved Bitcoin ETF,” the note read. “As of October 2023, assets managed by broker-dealers ($27 trillion), banks ($11 trillion) and RIAs ($9 trillion) collectively totaled $48.3 trillion.”

- Omkar Godbole