The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has granted ARK Invest an extension in order to make a decision regarding the company’s request for approval of a Bitcoin Spot Exchange Traded Fund (ETF).
Pushing back the SEC’s decision deadline even further is stirring anticipation within the cryptocurrency sector. The original date for the decision was the 13th of August. The final outcome of this decision will have a significant impact on the cryptocurrency industry. Particularly in terms of the acceptance of Bitcoin by established institutions.
ARK Invest and 21Shares were the first to ask for a spot Bitcoin ETF. They did this on June 28, 2021, when they sent their request to the SEC. But things changed when BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, also applied for a spot Bitcoin ETF. This caused ARK Invest and 21Shares to change their initial applications. The most important change was including a “surveillance sharing agreement” with an exchange. Not long after that, on July 19, BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF officially went into the Federal Register. This started the review process, and other companies’ ETF applications soon followed.
How others percieve it:
James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas, analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence, have raised the odds of approving a Bitcoin spot ETF to 65%. All based on recent changes in the industry.
Seyffart and Balchunas’s new prediction is based on a number of factors. These include SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s small role in the organization. The commission’s implicit support for Coinbase, Grayscale’s attempts to downplay other filings, and the SEC’s previous loss in the Grayscale case under the same panel of judges.
Cathie Wood, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of ARK Investment Management, has said that she thinks the SEC’s decision will be delayed. Still, she thinks that if the SEC approves a Bitcoin spot Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), it is likely to do so. For more than one ETF at the same time. ARK Invest has changed its application for a spot Bitcoin ETF to be more like the most recent one from BlackRock.
At the same time, many institutions are working hard to make Ethereum Futures-related ETFs. The Volatility Shares Ether Strategy ETF got things started on July 28 by sending their first application to the SEC. Other companies, like Grayscale Ethereum Futures ETF, ProShares Short Ether Strategy ETF, VanEck Ether Strategy ETF, Roundhill Ether Strategy ETF, and Bitwise Ethereum Strategy ETF, quickly followed suit. It’s important to know that the SEC has rejected all previous attempts to start Ethereum Futures ETFs.
