The U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) indictments against Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency exchange Binance, favor the potential approval of a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). That's the view of Matrixport, an investment and financial services company.

According to the company's argument, with what happened yesterday, more exchanges "are going to improve their compliance programs and become part of a shared surveillance agreement, which will be critical to approving an ETF."
So far, there are 12 companies that have filed applications to launch spot bitcoin ETFs. Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) delayed until the first few months of 2024, the decision on applications for bitcoin ETFs from companies Global X and Franklin Templeton.
Meanwhile, Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein, another company interested in issuing a fund, met with SEC members on Monday to discuss details of his application.
After learning about what happened to Zhao, the odds of one or more of those bitcoin spot funds being approved could have increased to 100%, MatrixPort estimates, since, it says, exchanges will have to follow the same rules that "TradFi" (traditional finance) companies follow.