“There are a lot of risks in that entity Coinbase that are not understood,” Belshe said. “I think that the SEC could quite likely come back and say: ‘Nope, you've got to separate out those things fully before we move forward.'”
Several ETF analysts have said that the chances of an ETF being approved in January are around 90%. The SEC has rejected numerous applications over the years, citing concerns over potential market manipulation and a lack of customer protection.
Fund manager BlackRock filed an application for a spot bitcoin ETF in June. Since then, the price of BTC has rallied by 45% to $36,200, according to TradingView data.