The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the USA has decided to postpone some decisions regarding Ethereum ETFs. For example, the decision on ETH staking for Grayscale’s ETF has been moved to June 1st, and the in-kind redemptions of VanEck’s ETF to June 3rd.
Summary
USA: the SEC takes time to decide on VanEck’s Ethereum ETF modifications
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the USA is postponing its decision regarding some requested amendments on Ethereum ETFs.
In a statement, the SEC has decided to take an additional 45 days for the request of amendments to the VanEck Bitcoin Trust and the VanEck Ethereum Trust, proposed by the Cboe BZX. The idea is to allow “in-kind creations and redemptions” for these ETFs (creations and redemptions in kind.)
In practice, this change provides that an investor uses the underlying asset, instead of cash, to create or redeem shares of a trust. Here the underlying asset would be bitcoin and ethereum respectively for VanEck’s respective ETFs.
Despite an initial request to amend the rules, made by Cboe BXZ on February 19 with a deadline of April 19, the SEC has decided that it will give its final verdict on June 3.
In this regard, the SEC document states the following:
“The Commission considers it appropriate to designate a longer period within which to act on the proposed rule change, in order to have sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change and the issues raised therein.”
USA: the reasons for the delay in decisions on the modifications of Ethereum ETF VanEck and others
Just like for VanEck’s Ethereum and Bitcoin ETF, the SEC has also postponed to June 3 its decision regarding in-kind creations and redemption of the WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund.
Not only that, the US SEC has also taken time to make decisions on other amendments requested by other companies.
In fact, in another announcement, the SEC has decided to postpone to the first of June its decision regarding the request for modification of the Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETF and the Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust ETF.
Here, the NYSE Arca would have proposed on February 14 the rule change to allow the two trusts to hold ETH and enable staking.
The motivation behind all these delays and postponements of decisions by the SEC could be due to a desire on the part of the regulatory authority to allow itself more time for evaluation.
It is important to remember that the current Crypto Task Force was established to accelerate the creation of reasonable guidelines and policies for the cryptocurrency sector.
The Crypto Task Force and the NFT sector
And speaking of Crypto Task Force, recently the famous NFT marketplace OpenSea submitted its own letter to urge clarity on NFT regulation.
The recipient of this letter is precisely the Crypto Task Force of the SEC of the USA, to which OpenSea asks to eliminate the existing confusion in the Non-Fungible Token sector.
The main topic of this letter sees OpenSea specifying to regulators that NFT marketplaces cannot be classified as either exchanges or securities brokers.
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