For Wall Street, Bitcoin ETF Decision Could Answer '$1 Billion' Question

For one, VanEck's specific proposal came about nearly three years ago when SolidX, a financial technology company also headquartered in New York, first began to work toward bringing a bitcoin ETF to market.

What makes the VanEck-SolidX bitcoin ETF unique? Simply put, it's different from past efforts such as the recently rejected Winklevoss ETF. As Gurbacs explained, "It is an insured product." As such, the physical bitcoins backing ETF shares would be covered in case of "Theft and hacks and losses of all sorts."

This isn't the selling point for Phil Bak, a former managing director at the New York Stock Exchange and current CEO of Exponential ETFs.

In an interview with CoinDesk last week, Gurbacs affirmed that the ETF was "Institutionally oriented."

"Today, the bitcoin markets are still 90-95 percent retail and institutions are looking for a way to get into these markets so the physical ETF we have tailored to institutions," he remarked.

Others see the ETF as a possible path to future products around crypto, including Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Balchunas thinks of the institutionally-geared VanEck-SolidX ETF as the "Bridge between not approving and approving an actual regular primetime-ready ETF with a share price that looks more normal," adding that this is one of the primary reasons why the SEC might consider the prospect of approving it as a "Baby step towards a real ETF.".

Long road ahead. Those differences aside, whether the SEC actually approves the proposed ETF remains to be seen.

To be clear, the proposal is currently at a stage frequented by all new ETFs - crypto or otherwise - wherein the partnering exchange has filed for a "Rule change" with the SEC in order to be included on the exchange listing venue.

Given that, in his view, a "Blanket approval" is highly unlikely at the outset, Bak emphasizes that the SEC certainly has "The option to extend these things out over longer time frames," which has been the case for five other bitcoin ETF proposals in recent days.