SEC Approval Until 2020 Is Unlikely: VanEck, SolidX Drop ETF Race

The race towards a Bitcoin exchange traded fund (ETF) seems to have stopped a bit, after the Chicago Board Options Exchange’s BZX Equity Exchange withdrew its VanEck/SolidX Bitcoin ETF proposal a month ahead of the review deadline. The SEC approval until 2020 is still uncertain – even though the regulator had until October 18 to green light or reject the financial product.

As the latest cryptocurrency news show, the race for the first Bitcoin exchange traded fund (ETF) seems to be postponed once again. Even though the SEC approval was underway and the commission is reviewing two other proposals of this kind, the VanEck/SolidX Bitcoin ETF was generally perceived as the strongest contestant to get regulatory permission and debut the investment vehicle in the United States.

Right now, chances are that the industry will not see a crypto based ETF until 2020 at the earliest. Meanwhile, an ETF is a type of investment fund that is tied to the price of an underlying asset such as a commodity, an index, bonds or a basket of assets such as an index fund. As described on many Bitcoin and altcoin news sites, this ETF is listed and traded on exchanges, normally available to both retail and institutional investors.

As of September 2019, ETFs represent a $3.9 trillion market, according to the research firm XTF, as cited by Wall Street Journal. At this time, a Bitcoin ETF would in turn track Bitcoin as the underlying asset – and provide an indirect way to purchase cryptocurrency – in which the investor gets the corresponding security without having to hold the actual BTC coins.

However, no player has secured the permission to list a Bitcoin ETF in the US yet. The SEC approval has been foggy over the past years, and the commission has been denying and postponing all attempts to register a Bitcoin-focused financial product in the country.

Some of the financial watchdog arguments against approving Bitcoin ETFs include the supposedly “insignificant size” of the Bitcoin futures market – as well as the possibility of fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices. This is a topic which was featured on many best cryptocurrency news sites.

Both VanEck and SolidX had tried registering their ETFs separately beforehand – in August 2017 and July 2016 – hoping for a SEC approval – but the commission shut down both attempts.