There are no grounds for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to block the launch of a spot Bitcoin-ETF. This was stated by commissioner Hester Peirce in a comment to Bloomberg.
“I think I’ve been very candid in saying that for many years I have believed that we [the SEC] have no business standing in the way of a spot bitcoin ETF,” Peirce said.
She declined to comment on the progress of discussions between the regulator and ETF issuers, but stressed that every statement should be evaluated on its merits. However, she sees no grounds to reject some of them.
Earlier Peirce said that the spot Bitcoin-should have been approved five years ago, and the delay in making this decision has always puzzled her. In July the official pointed to the harm of the regulator’s inconsistent stance for US citizens.
On June 15, BlackRock submitted to the Commission an application for an investment product based on the first cryptocurrency. Following the financial giant, similar requests were submitted by Valkyrie, Fidelity Investments, WisdomTree and Invesco.
On August 31 the SEC postponed decisions on several Bitcoin-ETF at least until mid-October. At the end of September the regulator delayed consideration of the applications to January 2024.
In November, representatives of the Commission and BlackRock held a meeting, during which they discussed the details of the spot exchange-traded fund based on the first cryptocurrency.
Prior to that, the regulator met with the leadership of Grayscale to discuss converting their Bitcoin Trust into an exchange-traded fund.