On Monday (August 12), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reportedly postponed making a decision on all three pending Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposals.
The three pending Bitcoin ETFs were proposed by Bitwise Asset Management (filed with NYSE Arca), VanEck/SolidX (filed in February with Cboe Global Markets), and Wilshire Phoenix (filed with NYSE Arca).
The first two rule change proposals were published in the Federal Register in February 2019. The final decision for these two proposals are expected by October 13 and October 18 respectively.
As for the third one, it was published in the Federal Register in June 2019. The new deadline for this proposal is September 29 (although the Commission could delay again by another 150 days).
When Bitcoiner and prominent U.S. attorney Jake Chervinsky (General Counsel at decentralized finance startup Compound) was asked on Twitter when we were likely to see the SEC finally approve a Bitcoin ETF, he had this to say:
I sincerely doubt it happens in 2019. Nothing about current market structure suggests approval is more likely than last year when every ETF proposal was denied due to market manipulation concerns. Even if we overcome manipulation, custody may be another barrier to approval. ☹️
— Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) August 12, 2019
Today’s news did not come as a shock to the crypto community on Twitter.
Here are a couple of the reactions:
Gabor Gurbacs, Director of Digital Assets Strategy at VanEck/MVIS:
The VanEck SolidX #Bitcoin #ETF decision has been postponed by the SEC until October 18, 2019 at which point the SEC must either approve or disapprove the proposal. A physical, liquid, insured Bitcoin ETF may serve the public interest. Onwards! 🤟Source: https://t.co/QsEYfp6liR pic.twitter.com/4CDNPslFxn
— Gabor Gurbacs (@gaborgurbacs) August 12, 2019
Anthony Sassano, Product Marketing Manager at Set Labs:
Ethereum 2.0 (phase 2) will launch before a Bitcoin ETF gets approved.@tweet_stamp stamp
— Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) August 12, 2019
As for the crypto markets, it looks like they responded with a shrug.
According to data from CryptoCompare, at press time (21:41 UTC on August 12), BTC-USD is trading at $11,402, down 1.115% in the past 24-hour period:
And this is how some of the most popular altcoins are doing:
