SEC postpones applications from seven companies again, Bitcoin ETF application has little hope of approval this year

Table of Contents
Bitcoin ETF application delayed again
Ripple and Grayscale's victory brought hope
Wall Street giants have been actively applying for Bitcoin ETFs since June
Bitcoin ETF applications from seven companies delayed again
On September 30, the SEC postponed its decision on VanEck’s spot Bitcoin ETF application. On the same day, Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart posted on social media that the SEC had postponed its decision on two spot Bitcoin ETFs from Fidelity and WisdomTree.
Recently, the SEC has postponed the resolutions on Bitcoin spot ETFs applied for by seven companies.
BlockBeats previously reported that on September 1, SE said on Thursday that it would postpone the approval resolution of seven spot Bitcoin ETF proposals. The regulator said in a separate document that the decision deadline for BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust, Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust, VanEck Bitcoin Trust, WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust and Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF will be extended to October 17, while the deadline for the Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund will be postponed to October 19. In addition, the decision deadline for the Bitwise Bitcoin ETP Trust Fund has also been postponed to October 16.
On September 29, the SEC again stated that it was initiating additional procedures to determine whether the Bitcoin spot ETF applications proposed by BlackRock, Invesco, Valkyrie, and Bitwise should be approved. In the documents submitted to Valkyrie, the SEC asked commentators to provide relevant opinions, and also wanted to know whether the proposed monitoring sharing agreement with the crypto exchange Coinbase would help "detect, investigate, and prevent fraud and manipulation." This means that the approval process will take at least a few more months.
Grayscale and Ripple’s legal wins brought hope
On July 13, 2023, Ripple Labs won a three-year lawsuit with the SEC, with Judge Analisa Torres ruling in favor of Ripple Labs at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission: XRP is not a security.
Related reading: "Looking back on the three-year Ripple case, is the court ruling epoch-making?"
After all, XRP is one of the more centralized foundations with key leaders, standard sales through trading platforms, and a formal distribution plan in place. If XRP that does all of this is not a security, then pretty much anything sold through trading platforms is not a security.
If XRP is not a security, then obviously BTC and ETH are not securities either. This also seems to mean that the Bitcoin ETF application submitted by Wall Street giants such as BlackRock seems to have hope of success.
BlockBeats previously reported that on August 29, Grayscale won the lawsuit against the SEC. A three-judge appeals panel in Washington overturned the SEC's decision to block the Grayscale ETF. The court said that "the rejection of Grayscale's proposal was arbitrary and capricious because the SEC failed to explain the different treatment of similar products."
The community generally believes that the news of Grayscale's victory will increase the possibility of the SEC approving a spot Bitcoin ETF.
Related reading: "Grayscale wins the lawsuit against the SEC, does the DCG empire behind GBTC have new hope?"
Issues such as market manipulation, liquidity, and the inherent volatility of crypto industry assets are among the reasons why regulators such as the SEC have remained cautious.
Obviously, once the Bitcoin spot ETF is officially listed in the United States, it will become a milestone event in the global blockchain field, because it means that the U.S. regulatory authorities have legally recognized the legal status of Bitcoin as a financial product, and Bitcoin will gain unprecedented influence.
Wall Street giants have been actively applying for Bitcoin ETFs since June
BlockBeats reported that on June 16, iShares, a subsidiary of asset management giant BlackRock, submitted a spot Bitcoin ETF application to the US SEC. The fund was named "iShares Bitcoin Trust" and its assets "are mainly composed of Bitcoin held on behalf of the trust custodian."
On June 21, Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, wrote that asset management company WisdomTree has resubmitted an application for a spot Bitcoin ETF. In addition, Invesco has resubmitted the 19b-4 filing for a spot Bitcoin ETF. On the same day, cryptocurrency fund company Valkyrie also submitted an S-1 registration form for a spot Bitcoin ETF to the SEC.
On June 30, CNBC cited relevant documents to report that financial services giant Fidelity has submitted another application for a Bitcoin spot ETF. In the application submitted, Fidelity stated that its Wise Bitcoin Trust (a spot Bitcoin ETF) will help American investors avoid risks.
The SEC responded at the time that these spot Bitcoin ETF application documents did not clearly specify the names of the spot Bitcoin trading platforms with which they had signed "data sharing agreements" and did not provide sufficient information about the details of these monitoring arrangements.
On July 4, BlackRock resubmitted its Bitcoin spot ETF application to the SEC through Nasdaq, indicating that Coinbase Global Inc. will provide market supervision. On July 5, Valkyrie also submitted a new 19b-4 filing, and the filing update included the designation of Coinbase as a partner in the supervision sharing agreement.
On August 4, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart said on social media that Bitwise actually applied for two ETFs. In addition to the previously announced "Bitwise Bitcoin and Ether Equal Weight Strategy ETF", there is also a "Bitwise Bitcoin and Ether Market Cap Weight Strategy ETF".
Despite repeated delays, the enthusiasm for applying for spot Bitcoin ETFs has not diminished. On August 30, Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, wrote, "My analyst James Seyffart and I have raised the probability of launching a Bitcoin spot trading platform exchange-traded fund (ETF) this year to 75% (increasing to 95% by the end of 2024)."
After the SEC stated that it would postpone applications for Bitcoin ETFs from companies such as BlackRock, on October 5, Steven Schoenfield, former managing director of BlackRock and current CEO of MarketVector Indexes, said at the CCData Digital Asset Summit in London: “I think The SEC will likely approve all ETF applications at the same time. They don't want to give anyone a first-mover advantage. They are not rejecting any of the entire list outright, but are asking for comments, which is a small but significant improvement.