Will the Greyscale Bitcoin ETF launch on time? Application key details are missing

The anticipated Bitcoin (BTC) spot ETF approvals are days away – but one of the biggest players in the competition may be behind the regulatory process.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted on Tuesday that the company's latest S-3 filing for a Bitcoin ETF still lacks critical information that rival fund managers include in their filings.

What is grayscale waiting for?

In the year As of January 2nd, Grayscale has not yet confirmed what organizations will be “Authorized Participants” (APS) for the Bitcoin ETF.

APNs are responsible for creating and buying ETF shares. At the request of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), grayscale said that APSs deliver and receive funds for such activities, rather than actual BTC, but left blank spaces where APSs should be properly named.

“I'm not sure why because the SEC wanted to see it and they've been pretty cool since they have one,” Balchunas wrote for X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.

In applying for ETAF approval in June 2022, Grayscale APAs announced that market makers Jane Street and Virtu were. The company tweeted that AP has already been selected.

Balchunas added: “As long as we consider any horse as an authority. “Also Blackrock, Fidelity and others did it, so why not this?”

Income ETF approvals

The SEC has held several meetings with Grayscale, BlackRock and other Bitcoin ETF applicants over the past three months since winning a related court battle with Grayscale in August.

Analysts are confident the agency's more participatory tone will give the ETF the green light on January 10 – the deadline to approve or reject the Ark/21Shares ETF application. Grayscale has pressured the SEC to ensure that it approves all competing applicants at once.

Last week, several fund providers updated their filings to include management fee rates – the annual cost that investors are charged to fund their holdings of BTC. Although benchmarks such as Galaxy and Fidelity have shown rates of 0.59% and 0.39% respectively, both Greyscale and BlackRock have yet to disclose their rates.

As of today, Grayscale will charge GBTC investors a 2% management fee, although CEO Michael Sonnenschein has promised to waive the fee if the fund converts to an ETF.

“Big work week,” Sonnhenshein posted to X on Tuesday.