The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday approved the first-ever spot bitcoin ETFs, giving institutional and retail investors exposure to the world's largest cryptocurrency without directly holding it.

The funds, from asset managers including BlackRock, Fidelity, and Ark Investments and 21Shares, among others, track bitcoin's "spot" price in real time. Until now, only futures-based bitcoin ETFs have been available. Some products are expected to begin trading as early as Thursday.

The new funds are a major boost to an industry beset by a string of scandals - most notably the collapse of crypto exchange FTX and the conviction on fraud charges of its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.

Ben Laidler is Global Markets Strategist at eToro.

"So, I think it's another key step forward in the development of what is still by far the youngest, smallest and most retail investor dominated of all the asset classes. And it's happening in what is by far the world's biggest capital market. [FLASH] Let's just recognize this is just one of what, I think, is a long laundry list of potential asset class catalysts this year. I mean, next up we would have the Ethereum spot ETF decision, and then we move on to the April Bitcoin halving, on and on - any one of which I think is important in the context of what is still a very small asset class."

The green light from the SEC comes after a false start the day prior.

Industry insiders and media outlets were caught off guard Tuesday evening when an unknown party posted on the SEC's X account that all the ETFs products had been approved, sending investment executives scrambling to figure out what was happening.

The SEC quickly disavowed and deleted the post, and said authorities are investigating the incident. X confirmed late on Tuesday that the SEC's account was hacked.

Bitcoin has gained more than 70% in recent months on the expectation ETFs for the asset would be approved. It was trading upwards of $46,000 on Wednesday.

Standard Chartered analysts this week said the ETFs could draw $50 billion to $100 billion this year alone, driving the price of bitcoin as high as $100,000.