Approval sends Bitcoin skyrocketing. Disapproval merely causes a minor consolidation.
I am not selling BTC fearing a massive price collapse. Diversifying into best of breed altcoins for more leverage is okay, but this leverage can bite you in both directions.
If the ETF is approved, then it is possible Bitcoin may rapidly skyrocket to $2500.
An ETF would simply add fuel for a short burst. Maybe $2000-2500 to start. After a correction from there, a flood will probably start (likely coming from Asia & Europe) with $6000 as an initial target for late 2017 to 2018.
The chances of BTC going below $1000 are rapidly dwindling. We're currently at the top of the red channel from my prior posts, and if we exceed $1288-1290 for more than a day it's very likely the trend will continue.
Eventually we may have to retest $1000-1100 but that's likely to be short-lived and sometime around Armstrong's call to beware of April. As of now I still see only the beginning of an acceleration in trend. If we hold above $1265, I think it will be more of a pause in trend than a correction. It still seems that $1300-1500 is being reached for. To borrow a term from Armstrong - this may be a phase transition; the rules seem to be shifting.
Also an ETF disapproval seems to maybe already be baked into the expectations, i.e. seems there is a lot of selling at the ATH and diversification into altcoins since January but that may be premature (as we may be blasting off through the ATH to a new phase transition analogous to 2013).
Interestingly note on that Bitcoin Percentage of Total Market Capitalization chart linked in the above quote, that the percent made a long-term bottom on March 13 or 14, 2016. And the trend is upward and higher-highs and higher-lows since. So what actually happens is that as BTC falls in price, more funds move out of altcoins into BTC. So a crash of BTC, crashes altcoins on a percentage basis more than it does BTC.
It is possible that the best move right now might be to take gains on these recent altcoin increases and buy BTC. You want to sell BTC for altcoins as BTC is rising to take advantage of larger percentage gains in altcoins and then sell altcoins near the peak and repurchase BTC on dips. Again I am not a trader and traders should analyze more carefully.
Re: Price will not crash if the ETF is rejected
I think a lot of people is going to go bankrupt with their short expectations.
ETF or not, bitcoin is growing and too strong, it will keep growing. If the ETF is rejected, it just means we are closer than we were from an ETF getting accepted. The SEC will give up the final recommendations and changes required for the ETF to get passed the next time. This is a long term race. ETF rejected means nothing. Shorts that are expecting a big crash may have their short positions backfire.