Who would have guessed it? (/sarcasm)
Of course, no one but deluded noobs think that the SEC is going to pass an ETF, if not ever, at least any time soon.
The reason they allowed Futures is because with Futures they can apply a strong bearish manipulation on the market. They will not allow an ETF until they have kicked out 100% of noobs out of the market, and once they have more BTC in their hands than the rest of the world, they will allow an ETF.
BTC is going to $100,000+ with or without ETF, but without an ETF it will be slower and TPTB continues amassing BTC by extending the bear period. The only reason all these phantom derivative scams are allowed is for them to manipulate prices in their favor.
Bitcoin futures don't affect bitcoin prices much (don't make an error of confusing cause and effect here) as these futures are cash-settled only and no real Bitcoin is involved in the process of settling at expiry. So what makes you think that allowing Bitcoin ETFs would be a game changer for the cryptoworld? Okay, let assume that these ETFs are allowed finally, and so what? Just letting major investors ("big fish" like pension funds) to enter this market "officially" doesn't mean that they will actually do so. Apart from that, no one can prevent private investors of any caliber (think Soros or Buffett here) invest in crypto but I haven't heard a good thing from them about Bitcoin and the company it keeps.