Bitcoin price remains uninfluenced from SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s comments on spot BTC ETF

Bitcoin price noted volatility on Thursday after the cryptocurrency oscillated in both upward and downward directions owing to mixed signals from the market. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair discussed the upcoming spot BTC ETFs, sharing insights on how their decision has been affected by the courts.

Daily Digest Market Movers: SEC Chair holds court responsible for spot Bitcoin ETF

The spot Bitcoin ETF is set to be the biggest Bitcoin event of 2024 before the halving in April. The market is expecting the beginning of the bull run as the SEC will likely approve the dozen spot BTC ETF applications by early January next year.

Discussing the same in an interview, the Chair of the Commission, Gary Gensler, known for his anti-crypto stance, stated that it was the courts that made the SEC reconsider the ETF. He stated,

“We had in the past denied a number of these applications, but the courts here in DC weighed in on that. So we’re taking a new look at this based upon those court rulings.

This is not surprising since the only reason the spot Bitcoin ETFs are so close to approval is because Grayscale won the court’s favor when it filed the lawsuit against the regulator earlier this year. 

However, the lack of support, even at this stage, despite holding multiple meetings with applicants, did not seem to take too well with BTC holders.

On the other hand, the very same day, the Prime Minister of Montenegro, Milojko Spajić, reportedly held a meeting with JAN3 CEO Samson Maw, a hyberbitcoinization accelerator, to discuss Bitcoin “hydro bonds”. Per reports, Spajić intends to leverage and take advantage of the network of rivers in the country. 

If the country goes through with these bonds, Montenegro would be following in the footsteps of El Salvador, which announced its “volcano bonds” back in 2021. These bonds were intended to raise $1 billion, half of which would be dedicated towards the Bitcoin city that would be built by capitalizing on the energy emitted by the nearby volcano.

This, unlike Gensler’s comments, had a positive impact on the price, resulting in the swing.

Technical Analysis: Bitcoin price makes progress

Bitcoin price, at the time of writing, could be seen hovering around $42,950 after the fluctuation observed on Thursday. Following the positive and negative reaction from the market, the cryptocurrency rallied to $43,500 and declined to $41,500 before making its way back to the trading price. 

Nevertheless, this did not impact the short-term outlook for price action, which is making its way towards $45,000 before the end of the year. The price indicators - Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) - are exhibiting bullishness persisting in the market.

This is a sign that going forward, Bitcoin price will test $43,000 and $42,500 as support in order to secure a rally to $44,000 and beyond.

BTC/USD 4-hour chart

However, if BTC falls through the $42,000 support, it will have a shot at bouncing back from $40,000 but falling through it would invalidate the bullish thesis, likely sending Bitcoin price to $38,000.