SEC Records Yet Another Bitcoin ETF Petition Withdrawal

A document published on the 14th of January by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has confirmed rumors being circulated that Bitwise Asset Management has withdrawn its previous petition for a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. This will be the second notable ETF withdrawal in the past few months after a coinciding action by VanEck.

Bitwise originally filed for an ETF enrollment in January last year. Some months after its filing, the firm published the Bitwise Report on exchange volume, which claimed that 95% of its total trading volume was falsified.

This discovery was used by the enterprise as a debating point for the SEC to approve the ETF filing. By dismissing the bulk of the exchange volume, the enterprise sustained that price formation for Bitcoin happened largely on regulated exchanges.

However, the SEC was not convinced by this debate and turned down the petition in October 2019. Some weeks later, however, the agency settled on re-evaluating its vindication.

This has led to confusion as to why Bitwise is now just deciding to relinquish its petition. The executive of the enterprise has refused to give any statement on the development.

This is almost the same pattern that ensued before VanEck withdrew its ETF petition in September 2019.

Challenges Facing Bitcoin ETFs
An ETF is much like a stock that tracks certain assets or indexes of an asset. Shares of ETFs mimic the price movement of the underlying asset and can be traded normally on exchanges.

A Bitcoin ETF on that account would provide institutional and retail investors likewise with the means to have unrestrained access to the cryptocurrency while obeying regulations set by exchanges.

There have been numerous undertakings in the past to get the SEC to approve a Bitcoin ETF. The agency’s main concern is still on the possibility of manipulation by bad actors and difficulty in regulation.

The Chair of the SEC, Jay Clayton, stated in a conference in September last year that the agency was progressing and that there was still a lot of work to be done.

The agency has another ruling on an ETF petition by Wilshire Phoenix set for February 2020.