The fate of Bitcoin’s price throughout the rest of the year largely lies in the answer to one question: Will a Bitcoin spot ETF be approved in the United States?

Joe Carlasare – a commercial litigator supporting Bitcoin – tweeted on Monday that he gives such a product a 30-40% chance of launching inside of a year. He later spoke with CryptoPotato to explain how he arrived at those numbers. 

The Trouble With Grayscale’s Lawsuit

According to Carlasare, the market’s best bet at launching a spot ETF remains with Grayscale’s lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 

As the owners of the world’s largest Bitcoin fund, Grayscale sued the regulator last year for denying its ETF application in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner, despite approving multiple similar products in the form of Bitcoin futures ETFs. 

The case went to its first oral hearing in March, during which judges seemed more sympathetic to Grayscale’s arguments than the SEC’s. This spurred certain analysts including Bloomberg’s Elliot Z. Stein to assign 70% odds to Grayscale’s victory, thus boosting the odds of a spot ETF approval by the end of the year. 

Carlasare, however, refuses to be so optimistic – especially as a Grayscale victory won’t necessarily lead to a spot ETF.

For what seems like the 100th time, my personal view is that the probability of success in approving a spot bitcoin ETF in the near term (inside of a year) is still 30-40% —- which I consider to be fairly good odds.

I strongly reject the view that approval is highly probable… https://t.co/fAuNJ9pkhh

— Joe Carlasare (@JoeCarlasare) July 3, 2023

“The hard par