U.S. SEC Pushes Its Decision on VanEck and Bitwise Bitcoin ETF to May 2019

02. Apr 2019 Posted by Akolkar B on News

The U.S. SEC yet again sticks to its usual stand and looks in no mood to approve any crypto ETF product anytime soon. The securities regulator has pushed the dates of two separate Bitcoin ETF proposals filed by VanEck/SolidX and Bitwise Asset Management.

As per the new ruling, the U.S. SEC is likely to decide on these two ETFs by the next month of May 2019. On February 15, 2019, the Bitwise Asset Management company filed its first Bitcoin ETF proposal in partnership with the NYSE Arca exchange. As per the scheduled clock, the SEC had to respond on this within the first 45 days i.e. by April 1.

However, on March 30, the SEC released its statement saying that it needs more time to decide while pushing the date to May 16, 2019. The SEC filing reads that by May 16, 2019, “the Commission shall either approve or disapprove, or institute proceedings to determine whether to disapprove, the proposed rule change”.

Last Friday, the SEC also issued another public notice that talks of the decision to delay another Bitcoin ETF proposal by VanEck/SolidX, by a period of 45 days. The VanEck-SolidX Trust had been since long seeking for a Bitcoin ETF.

Last year in July 2018, VanEck filed for a Bitcoin ETF proposal in partnership with the CBOE Exchange. Earlier, the ETF proposal created a lot of buzz and was the only hope for getting institutional players to the crypto game.

But despite creating a lot of expectations, the CBOE Bitcoin ETF failed to make way to the market. Thanks to the U.S. government shutdown earlier this year which caused CBOE to withdraw its application.

However, in a just a week time later, CBOE filed another application with the SEC for its VanEck Bitcoin ETF proposal. The SEC has, however, extended its decision on the new CBOE application by another 45-days with its deadline at May 21, 2019.

Note that in both these applications, the SEC can delay its decision to a maximum of 240 days from the initial date of application. The approval of the crypto ETF has been the most controversial topic in the last one year.

Citing several manipulative activities and the lack of investor protection, the SEC has been very much firm to hold up approving crypto ETF applications. While that the crypto market is slowly getting mature over time, it remains to be seen when will the securities regulator will give a go-ahead to this.