Gary Gensler, President of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), spoke about Bitcoin spot ETFs, appearing open to changing his mind. Specifically, Gensler said, “we are reviewing the issue based on court rulings.”
Summary
Gensler of the SEC is said to be open on the issue of Bitcoin ETFs
In an interview with CNBC, Gary Gensler, Chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), also spoke about Bitcoin spot ETFs.
“From cryptocurrencies to artificial intelligence, from short selling to hedge funds, @GaryGensler has had a lot to regulate since taking office as chairman of @SECGov in 2021. Listen as he explains his latest initiative: new rules to reduce risk in the US Treasury market.”
Specifically, Gensler stated that the SEC is reviewing the issue of Bitcoin spot ETFs, based on court rulings. Here are his words:
“Well, Sara, we have between eight and twelve requests. I am the president of a committee. I do not have the right to judge anything. So, the process is currently underway. As you may know, in the past we have denied some of these requests, but the District of Columbia courts have ruled on them. And so we are reviewing the matter based on the court’s decisions.”
Immediately after, however, when asked for more about Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF demand, Gensler responded in a more vague manner.
The President of the SEC wanted to describe the agency’s thoughts on the entire crypto sector, stating that there is not much compliance.
Not only that, Gensler reiterated that there are too many frauds and bad actors in this sector, as well as a lot of non-compliance, not only with security laws, but also with other laws on money laundering and protecting the public from bad actors.
To conclude his speech, Gensler spoke about crypto intermediaries, namely crypto-exchanges, stating that they do things that are not allowed in any other place in the US financial system.
Gensler of the SEC: what are the questions about Bitcoin ETF on the table?
Returning to the first response, Gensler emphasized that they are evaluating between eight and twelve applications for Bitcoin Spot ETF issuance.
In addition to not discussing the Grayscale case, however, Gensler also did not want to list the names of the companies that are waiting to receive approval.
And in fact, who knows if the number of questions also includes the last one from the Swiss asset manager, Pando Asset AG, which at the end of November joined the club of aspiring issuers of Bitcoin ETF Spot. In its case, the proposed ETF would be the Pando Asset Spot Bitcoin Trust which aims to be listed on the Cboe BZX Exchange, with Coinbase designated as custodian.
Not only that, just in the last few hours, Valkyrie has filed its updated Bitcoin ETF application with the SEC.
“BREAKING: Valkyrie has just updated its Spot ETF Bitcoin question. The SEC is now giving clear signals…”
This is the Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund which, already in September, had seen a delay in its decision by the SEC and had already been updated at the end of October. The present update of the S-1 registration form should be in line with the SEC’s requests.
Finally, the latest news report that in the last 4 days, the SEC would have met with various issuers such as Grayscale, Fidelity, and BlackRock.
This leads to think that there is a certain urgency that concerns two factors:
- the verdict on the ARK and 21Shares request by January 10th (deadline for applications)
- the possible early verdict also for BlackRock (whose deadline is set for March 2024), in order not to favor any issuer over the others.
Bloomberg’s BTC price forecasts
At the time of writing, the crypto queen Bitcoin (BTC) is worth $42,580 with a total market cap of over $833 billion.
For its future, many people support that it is really rosy. First and foremost, Bloomberg, which claims that BTC surpassing $42,000 is just the beginning of a new cryptocurrency supercycle that will push BTC beyond $500,000.
This six-figure optimism is justified by the information giant as a euphoria that will lead investors to want to expose themselves to the crypto world.
Not only that, this forecast also takes into account the Bitcoin halving in April 2024 and the approval (or not) of Bitcoin spot ETFs.
