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The SEC has postponed its decision on VanEck and Cboe’s request for approval of a bitcoin ETF.
The application had been filed on March 15th, and at that point, the SEC had 45 days to respond.
The first response came yesterday, with a note from the Securities and Exchange Commission on File No. SR-CboeBZX-2021-019 explicitly stating that the Commission is extending this period by another 45 days.
The SEC writes:
“The Commission finds that it is appropriate to designate a longer period within which to take action on the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change and the comments received”.
In fact, in the same memo, the agency also blatantly states that it has received comments on the VanEck and Cboe proposal, so it is possible that it intends to consider the request further on the basis of those comments as well.
Bitcoin ETF, SEC’s decision postponed until June 17th
It also specifies that the date by which it will have to approve or disapprove the proposal has slipped to 17 June 2021, although it cannot be ruled out that it may postpone the decision date even further.
To date, the SEC has always acted in this way with bitcoin ETF applications, i.e. taking as much time as possible to reach a decision.
In the past, Cboe decided to withdraw a similar proposal after several postponements, probably for fear that it would be rejected.
Now the context has definitely changed a lot compared to 2019, but apparently the SEC’s doubts on the matter have not yet dissipated. What seems increasingly curious is that in neighbouring Canada, on the other hand, a number of bitcoin ETFs have now been approved, so it is at least strange that the SEC continues to want to stand in the way.
However, it is worth noting that postponing such decisions is common practice for the US agency, so this postponement should not necessarily be seen as a negative sign. Finally, it should be noted that there are also other similar proposals in the pipeline