Advocates of the first US exchange-traded fund (ETF) that directly invests in Bitcoin were frustrated when the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) postponed its decision once more, just days after a court ruling that many saw as paving the way for the much-anticipated product.
The SEC, the main US securities regulator with a threefold mission of protecting investors, put off reviewing the filings from Bitwise, VanEck, Invesco, Valkyrie and WisdomTree, as shown by documents on its website on Thursday.
A spokesperson for BlackRock said the firm was also delayed. SEC Chair Gary Gensler has repeatedly defended his resistance to the ETFs as a necessary measure to safeguard investors from a sector that he claims is full of fraud.
This decision followed a major win for Grayscale Investments over the SEC. On Tuesday, a federal appeals court reversed the denial of Grayscale’s request to turn its Bitcoin trust into an ETF.
The decision stated that the rejection was “arbitrary and capricious” because the commission did not justify its different approach to similar products. ETFs that hold Bitcoin futures were approved in 2021.
