US SEC Refuses Bitcoin ETF Registrations Again

There may be a long wait for a Bitcoin Exchange-traded Fund (ETF) in the United States, as the Securities and Exchange Commission has called recent applications from fund managers insufficient.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the securities regulator told Nasdaq and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) that their documents were "not clear and complete." These exchanges represent asset managers who list financial products. In the eyes of the SEC, exchanges should name the spot bitcoin exchange they have a "shared custody agreement" or provide detailed information about the details of the custody agreement. However, resource managers can resubmit the newsletter after clarifying the information.

There has been a flurry of activity in the past few weeks since BlackRock joined the list of companies looking to launch Wall Street's first Bitcoin ETF. The BlackRock application introduced a "monitoring sharing agreement", under which information about market trading and clearing activities is shared between firms to avoid the possibility of market manipulation.

BlackRock's application prompted ARK Invest and 21Shares to revise their third-party applications for spot BTC ETFs to include similar management contracts. Other asset managers that have filed or revised their bids in recent days include Invesco, WisdomTree, Valkyrie and Fidelity. However, ARK Invest will be the favorite in this race.

ETFs track a single index and are often traded on exchanges. In the cryptocurrency market, funds that track the value of one or more digital tokens and are composed of different types of crypto are called cryptocurrency ETFs.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs have been banned since 2017 by the SEC. In Canada, however, financial products already exist. Three well-known funds - Target Bitcoin, 3iQ CoinShares and CI Galaxy Bitcoin - are directly included in the Bitcoin spot.