January Sees Major Virtual Asset Rally... JP Morgan Also Quietly Joins In

Bitcoin Surges Past 60 Million KRW Early This Year
Expectations Rise for Bitcoin Spot ETF Listing
Concerns Over Sharp Drop if US SEC Rejects Approval

The price of virtual assets broke through the resistance line, touching 60 million KRW since the beginning of the year. JP Morgan, a global investment bank (IB) led by CEO Jamie Dimon, who has opposed virtual asset trading for years saying "virtual asset trading should be banned," has also emerged as an ally of BlackRock Asset Management.

According to CoinMarketCap on the 3rd, Bitcoin was trading at 58.95 million KRW at around 5 p.m., down 0.59% from the previous day. Compared to seven days ago, it was up 6.37%. Bitcoin, which had been hovering in the 52 to 54 million KRW range the previous week, broke through the resistance line of 55 million KRW on the 2nd and soared to the 61 million KRW range. Altcoins (virtual assets other than Bitcoin) such as Ethereum and Solana also rose together, but Bitcoin showed the largest surge.

The market's expectation grew that the approval for the listing of a Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) is imminent. Bloomberg in the U.S. and others reported, citing documents submitted by BlackRock Asset Management to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that JP Morgan is joining as an authorized participant (AP) of the ETF along with Jane Street. APs are financial firms that, together with ETF issuers, mediate the creation and redemption of ETFs to maintain the market value of the ETF in line with Bitcoin. They are similar to liquidity providers (LPs) who supply liquidity to ETFs to prevent price discrepancies between the index and the underlying assets. Last December, JP Morgan CEO Dimon appeared before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing and made statements such as "If I were the government, I would ban (virtual assets)" and "The only use cases for virtual assets are crime, drug trafficking, money laundering, and tax evasion."

The market's focus this January is whether the U.S. SEC will approve the spot ETF. The SEC must provide a final response this month to BlackRock's Bitcoin spot ETF application. It is widely expected that final approval could be granted within the first quarter. In October last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an order to overturn the SEC's rejection of Grayscale's spot Bitcoin ETF application, weakening the SEC's grounds to reject ETF product applications from other asset managers like BlackRock. Currently, there are 12 applicants for ETFs.

The asset managers who applied for ETFs have growing expectations. Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale, said on X (Twitter) on the 2nd (local time), "Something big is going to happen this week." Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, also expressed optimism, saying, "Something big is coming."

On the other hand, there is also a scenario where the price could plunge if SEC approval is not granted. Fred Thiel, CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA), a Bitcoin mining company listed on Nasdaq, said in an interview with CNBC on the 2nd (local time), "If approval is denied, the price could fall to $30,000 (about 39 million KRW)," adding, "The market will consolidate and investors will be in a dilemma." Market consolidation refers to the process where the market regains stability after a sharp price change.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.