Nicholas Merten Explains Why Grayscale's SEC Victory Might Be Overhyped by Bitcoin Bulls

A prominent crypto analyst notes that Bitcoin (BTC) bulls might be overly optimistic regarding the potential of Grayscale's recent legal victory against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to trigger the next bull market.

In a new strategy session, Nicholas Merten, the host of DataDash, tells his 511,000 YouTube subscribers that the king crypto’s lackluster price action after the announcement of Grayscale’s win indicates that the event may not be as big of a victory as BTC bulls thought.

“We saw a mere 6% move after a supposed victory against the SEC that must guarantee somehow that a Bitcoin spot market ETF is coming around the corner [which] tells me all I need to know. A mere 6% move, not even recouping the losses from back on the 17th of August when we didn’t have much news in the crypto space…

So, what gives? Why is it that Bitcoin, off of this supposedly phenomenal news, which is Bitcoin-focused, not XRP, can’t reclaim the 200-day moving average and the 200-week moving average?

This was the moment where we should have knocked all the shorts out of their positions, this is where we should have liquidated all those bears out of the market and driven up to new all-time highs. To be honest, if it [was] such a slam dunk, the market will start to price that in pretty quickly.”

In a separate post, Merten tells the 113,800 followers on social media platform X that BTC’s marginal bump in price may indicate that there isn’t much demand for a spot market BTC ETF as of yet.

“Wait… Grayscale supposedly wins its case against the SEC, yet Bitcoin is up only… 4.75%?! This smells like another ‘victory against the SEC!’ that will eventually fade because there’s either some catch or simply no desire for an ETF. Bulls better pray it isn’t the second…”

Earlier this week, a federal judge ruled that the SEC must reconsider Grayscale’s application to launch a Bitcoin ETF to remain consistent. Grayscale initially sued the SEC in June 2022, claiming that the regulatory body’s rejection of their ETF application was discriminatory.

Bitcoin is trading for $27,228 at time of writing, a fractional decrease during the last 24 hours.

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Aug 31, 2023