2024-01-04 07:18:57
Analysis has been raised that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve a Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) due to the political need to firmly establish itself as a virtual asset regulator.
The Block reported this on the 2nd (local time), citing a report from investment bank TD Cowen Washington Research Group. From the SEC’s perspective, it is analyzed that it will try to strengthen its position as a virtual asset regulator before the U.S. Congress discusses a broad virtual asset regulation bill.
The SEC must decide whether to approve Ark Invest and 21 Shares’ Bitcoin ETF by the 10th.
In July of last year, the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee passed a comprehensive regulation bill for the virtual asset market and a bill targeting stablecoin coin issuers. In order for the bill to be finalized, it must also be passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The possibility of processing it during last year was also discussed, but it ended up being postponed until the end of the year.
TD Cowen believes that Patrick McHenry, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, will try to approve virtual asset legislation during the ‘lame duck’ period ahead of the US midterm elections in November. It was analyzed that in order to quickly pass the virtual asset bill as intended, the SEC needs to take the lead in protecting virtual asset investors.
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler
He pointed out that if the SEC does not allow the launch of a Bitcoin spot ETF, it will also consider the possibility of entering into a legal dispute with the ETF applicant.
The SEC has already engaged in a lawsuit with Grayscale, a virtual asset manager, in 2022 when it rejected its application to convert its Bitcoin futures ETF to a spot ETF. Thereafter, the company did not appeal the court ruling that the SEC’s decision to disallow was unfair.
Since the previous lawsuit failed to provide a proper legal basis for disallowing the launch of a Bitcoin spot ETF, the prevailing view is that it is highly unlikely that a new logic will be developed to disallow other financial companies’ applications for the launch. In this regard, it is believed that the launch of a Bitcoin spot ETF will be permitted.
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In June of last year, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager and known to have a close to 100% approval probability of product launch application, submitted an application to the SEC to launch a Bitcoin spot ETF, and then several financial companies submitted applications for a Bitcoin spot ETF one after another. .
In the virtual asset industry, there have been several predictions that the SEC will approve a number of Bitcoin spot ETF products on the 10th of this month, which is the earliest deadline for final review among the applied Bitcoin spot ETFs. On the other hand, there are predictions that the launch will not be permitted as the SEC has maintained a strong regulatory stance on the virtual asset market.
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