The proposed rule change will allow Wilshire Phoenix Fund to list shares of ETF on NYSE Arca. SEC has declared that the public can comment on the aforementioned matter within 21 days’ time period.
After getting the public comments SEC can make an initial ruling within 45 days, and it can extend up to 90 days, although the proposal document needs first to be issued in Federal Register before SEC starts getting inputs from the public.
Wilshire Phoenix and NYSE Arca applied for the rule change proposal last month, hoping to offer shares in the United States Bitcoin and Treasury Investment Trust. The fund manager would oversee the trust, investing exclusively in bitcoin and short-term U.S. Treasury securities.
The SEC already rejected a Bitcoin ETF application submitted by the Winklevoss twins two times. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are known as owners of the New York-based crypto exchange Gemini.
The rejections, in March 2017 and again in June 2018, cited the twins’ failure to demonstrate how their Bitcoin ETF could prevent fraud and market manipulation.
In May 2019, the SEC again delayed making a decision on the VanEck Bitcoin ETF. While the industry was glad that the postponement wasn’t a rejection, it doesn’t seem that approval will happen this year. SEC also postponed the decision on ETF requested by Bitwise three times.
During the last hearing, the decision was delayed until August 2019. If SEC approves this plea, then 2019 can prove to be a really good year for the cryptocurrencies.
Just for reminder, Robert Jackson, SEC commissioner who’s known as a Bitcoin skeptic, confirmed the agency is experiencing internal disagreements over how to regulate crypto. However, he said the SEC will be more likely to approve crypto proposals, such as a Bitcoin ETF, once the industry matures.
Most of Crypto Twitter is commenting how SEC is “late” and “terribly slow”:
It’s almost like the SEC is attempting to assert its importance by showing it holds all the cards on an ETF. However one doesn’t need to buy an object from a bank which represents bitcoin. Cut out the SEC/banks and buy it on your own.
— operationzoom (@operationzoom) June 25, 2019
How people on the SEC works… pic.twitter.com/SlCwXUlihg
— Crypto Memo #LTC⚡#BTC⚡ (@Memo03129468) June 25, 2019
I have an opinion that SEC works very bad. ETF backed by bitcoin is considered for a long period of time but there is still no results. It seems to me that the SEC simply delays time and does not want to make decisions that are important for the crypto market.
— Concetta Serra (@titti_serra) June 25, 2019
Be it as it may, investors are slowly beginning to be fed up with the SEC’s unwillingness for accepting Bitcoin ETF in the local economy. In fact, SEC commissioners themselves are starting to encourage the regulator to speed things up.
An SEC commissioner Hester Peirce has recently urged the US regulator to reduce its standards for accepting exchange-traded fund on cryptocurrencies. Peirce has commented on the SEC’s approach to the ETF space by saying that the commission’s rejecting the ETF application of the Winklevoss twins was wrong. She also added that ETFs will encourage new institutional traders to join in the blockchain sphere, something that the country would benefit from.
