On March 10, the US Securities and Exchange Commission officially disapproved the Winklevoss twins’ Bitcoin ETF COIN. Contrary to the predictions of most analysts, Bitcoin price recovered almost immediately thereafter, stabilizing at $1,225.

Until earlier this morning, Bitcoin price maintained its stability at $1,225. After dropping to nearly $960 upon the announcement of the SEC, within minutes, Bitcoin price bounced back to $1,150 and rose to $1,225 over the past few days.

Today, the Bitcoin price reached $1,257 at its peak on most major Bitcoin exchanges including Bitstamp, Kraken and Bitfinex, taking a step closer towards hitting 2017’s year-to-date (YTD) high of $1,290, which was achieved days before the disapproval of the Bitcoin ETF.

An increasing number of investors voted in favor of the SEC approval in the week leading to the SEC’s decision. Optimistic analysis from leading financial institutions including Bloomberg led investors to believe that the COIN ETF will most likely be approved, as previously reported by the Cointelegraph.

On March 5, Bloomberg Intelligence Sr. ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas stated:

“The odds for and against are so evenly matched. You’ve got possible regulation, liquidity and security issues, but on the reasons for, ETFs have this long history of opening up new markets. A great example of an ETF that was approved by the SEC is ASHR. That was approved before any US companies had a quota.”

Why Bitcoin price was resilient towards the ETF ruling

Ultimately, either decision would have led to a similar trend for Bitcoin price. While the approval of the COIN ETF could have resulted in a massive short-term spike, in the mid-term, Bitcoin price would most likely have stabilized at low $1,300s primarily due to the Bitcoin community and the industry’s realization of the unnecessity of a Bitcoin ETF.

The argument going into the decision of the Bitcoin ETF approval was that exchange traded funds allow high-profile investors, hedge funds and multi-billion dollar investment firms to invest Bitcoin via a properly regulated channel.

Hedge funds or investment firms aren’t allowed to make risky investments through Bitcoin exchanges, which aren’t liquid enough to buy or sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin.

However, Bitcoin was introduced in 2009 to serve as an alternative to the global financial ecosystem. It wasn’t designed to be regulated and controlled by a central entity in the SEC for high profile investors and hedge funds to invest in for short-term gains.

Bitcoin is a digital currency designed to facilitate payments between two parties within a peer-to-peer protocol. As a digital currency, digital gold and a settlement network, Bitcoin isn’t in need of an overly regulated channel specifically created for large short to mid-term investments.

More importantly, the majority of the community expected the SEC to turn down the approval of the COIN ETF as SEC will be responsible for protecting investors against any potential events that may occur within the Bitcoin network; these could be hard forks or major network changes.

Although it is highly unlikely that either one of the two events will occur in the near future, the SEC was not willing to take any risks in protecting investors from investing in a “risky” asset and currency in Bitcoin.

So far, the market has been completely resilient to the ETF ruling, as it was towards the PBoC or the Chinese central bank’s announcements throughout January and February. The market is beginning to become more stable as Bitcoin grows as a technology and a financial network.