The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved multiple Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved multiple Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) after months of speculation. Offical source from SEC is here.
The ETFs filed by the asset management firms were simultaneously approved on the expected deadline of Jan. 10, 2023. There were a total of 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs approved:
- Grayscale Bitcoin Trust
- Bitwise Bitcoin ETF
- Hashdex Bitcoin ETF
- iShares Bitcoin Trust
- Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund
- ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF
- Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF
- VanEck Bitcoin Trust
- WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund
- Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund
- Franklin Bitcoin ETF
These ETFs will be traded across the NYSE Arca, Inc, the Nasdaq Stock Market and the Cboe BZX Exchange, and are expected to start trading on January 11.
This came after a dramatic last few days, where the official SEC's X (formerly Twitter) account was "compromised," and the hacker falsely posted the ETF approval news, leading to a temporary spike. Earlier on Jan. 10, CBOE allegedly jumped the gun by announcing the trading of ETFs on Jan. 11, before the SEC officially announced the approval.
According SEC Chair Gary Gensler's official statement, the approval of these spot ETFs are not an approval or endorsement of Bitcoin. He said:
"It should in no way signal the Commission’s willingness to approve listing standards for crypto asset securities. Nor does the approval signal anything about the Commission’s views as to the status of other crypto assets under the federal securities laws or about the current state of non-compliance of certain crypto asset market participants with the federal securities laws."
While he also mentioned that Bitcoin is a non-security commodity unlike "the vast majority of crypto assets [that] are investment contracts and thus subject to the federal securities laws," he highlighted the contrast to other commodities metals ETPs with underlying consumer and industrial uses. He stated:
"I’d note that the underlying assets in the metals ETPs have consumer and industrial uses, while in contrast bitcoin is primarily a speculative, volatile asset that’s also used for illicit activity including ransomware, money laundering, sanction evasion, and terrorist financing."
Following the approval news, Bitcoin (BTC) surged up to $47.6K, before retracing slightly. It is up 1.29% in the past 24 hours, and up 8.36% over the past week. However, Ethereum (ETH) is leading over BTC, gaining over 9.75% in the past 24 hours and rallying 15.9% in the past 7 days. BlackRock filed for an Ethereum spot ETF back in November 2023.
Since 2013, multiple firms have tried unsuccessfully to file for a spot Bitcoin exchange traded fund. The SEC repeatedly cited potential market manipulation in spot markets as the reason for rejection. However, the SEC did approve Bitcoin futures ETFs in October 2021, helping to push Bitcoin to an all-time-high of $69,000 in November 2021.
Over the past few months, there have been numerous meetings between the ETF applicants and regulators, with amendments made to S1 filings such as creation of shares with cash. Notably, the filings include a “surveillance-sharing agreement,” with many naming listed U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase as a partner, to address concerns over spot market manipulation.
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