On Tuesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted Grayscale a significant win over the SEC by revoking the SEC’s foregoing order to turn the GBTC into a Bitcoin Spot ETF.
However, Grayscale’s victory over the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was no surprise to some crypto stakeholders as they foresaw the company’s victory over the SEC before anyone else did.
Crypto Stakeholders Predicted Grayscale’s Victory
Following the initial lawsuit from Grayscale against the SEC, Crypto Lawyer John Deaton was one of the earliest experts who predicted Grayscale’s victory over the SEC.
Deaton’s predictions came in February 2023 following his X (formerly Twitter) post on February 28, 2023.
I predict a win for @Grayscale. When you fight back, the SEC isn’t as successful at winning as @GaryGensler and others would have you believe – just as @s_alderoty recently tweeted out that the SEC has lost 4 out of last 5 cases before the Supreme Court. https://t.co/QakllHSDiM
— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) February 28, 2023
According to him, “Lots of smart lawyers had thoughts that the SEC would win the case due to Grayscale attempting to meet a very high and difficult standard in proving arbitrary and capricious treatment from the agency.”
Now, following the comapny’s victory over the SEC, Deaton also took to X (formerly Twitter) to emphasize why he was confident about his prediction in the case. He explained that the SEC “wouldn’t be able to reasonably explain why they granted a futures ETF but not a spot.”
I was confident the SEC would lose because I was confident they wouldn’t be able to reasonably explain why they granted a futures ETF but not a spot. Every time they’re questioned on why they’re taking the position they’re taking they fail to reasonably and coherently explain it. pic.twitter.com/SBLdFGQ5HI
— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) August 29, 2023
Another crypto expert who predicted Grayscale’s victory over the SEC was Elliot Z. Stein, a Senior Legal Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Elliot’s predictions came amid an oral argument that was delivered by Grayscale in March.
During this argument, Grayscale called the SEC’s decision to not approve its ETF application the definition of arbitrary decision-making. The Judges in charge of the case seemed to have agreed with Grayscale’s argument saying that the SEC had no decent explanation for why they did not approve Grayscale’s application.
This prompted Elliot to change his previous view over the case and predicted that investment manager’s possibility of winning its lawsuit against the SEC just increased from 40% to 70% possibility.
“The SEC and Chair Gary Gensler may be bracing for a loss and looking to preemptively soften it or make it meaningless by approving spot Bitcoin ETF application before or around the same time as a court decision,” Elliot said in a research note back in June.
However, Elliot was not the only analyst from Bloomberg who was confident about Grayscale’s victory over the SEC. James Seyffart and Eric Balcunas were the two other crypto analysts who predicted this victory over the SEC is probably going to happen this year.
Another reason we give spot bitcoin ETF approval 50% chance is our senior legal analyst @NYCStein gives Grayscale a 70% chance of winning case against SEC, who could approve BlackRock’s ETF as way to save face using trusted ‘adult’ TradFi cos & stick it to Grayscale via @JSeyff pic.twitter.com/pHydOcpuQo
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) June 27, 2023
Effect Of The Victory Over The SEC
Grayscale’s victory over the SEC has had a significant effect on the crypto market. According to data from Coinglass, the victory set off over $95 million in market liquidations during the first few hours, with short traders bearing the brunt of the losses.
Furthermore, in the first 24 hours following the victory, the liquidation volumes rose to over $120 million.
On-chain data from Coinglass shows that 88% of the $97 million in liquidations was from short traders. Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) accounted for more than $60 million of the total liquidations respectively, followed by BNB, XRP, Solana (SOL), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and others accounting for the rest of the losses.
GBTC share price recovers above $20 | Source: Grayscale Bitcoin Trust on Tradingview.com
Featured image from CryptoMeter, chart from Tradingview.com
