Coinbase Stock Soars 15% Following Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF Win Against SEC

Coinbase’s stock today soared following news that a federal judge had sided with Grayscale in its SEC lawsuit. 

Just before markets closed on Tuesday, the price of COIN is trading for $85.13 per share—up more than 15% in the past day. America’s largest digital asset exchange Coinbase has been a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq since 2021. 

A federal court said Tuesday that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission  lacked a coherent explanation for denying Grayscale’s application to convert its Bitcoin Trust into a spot Bitcoin ETF.

The ruling, which investors have interpreted as a win for the cryptocurrency industry, means that a Bitcoin ETF could soon be available on Wall Street.

Coinbase has been selected by some applicants wanting to launch a Bitcoin ETF as the would-be fund’s custodian and surveillance-sharing partner.

This means the San Fransico-based company would share information about trading, clearing activity and customer identification to reduce the risks of market manipulation and take care of the storage of the Bitcoin backing the fund’s shares.

A Bitcoin spot ETF is not yet available in the U.S. because the SEC has been reluctant to approve one. Currently only futures crypto ETF products—which give investors exposure to contracts that bet on the future price of digital assets—exist in the States. 

But investors want an investment vehicle that gives them direct exposure to Bitcoin itself. 

BlackRock, the largest fund manager in the world, in June joined the long list of high-profile applicants seeking SEC approval; its CEO Larry Fink claimed there was hunger among his clients for crypto exposure. 

Bitcoin was trading for $27,982 per coin at the time of writing, up over 7% in 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. The biggest digital asset by market cap is still well below—by almost 60%—its November 2021 all-time high of $69,044.