It is Bitcoin ETF conclusion season once again for America’s securities regulator amid a changing of the guard at the commission.
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission now has 45 days to deliver a first decision on the VanEck Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund submitting having officially published the company’s submission on its site on March 15.
Now, the SEC has to approve, decline or extend the review period for the Bitcoin ETF filing inside the 45-day window. The SEC will stretch the deliberation window around 249 days before delivering a final decision. The public also includes a three-week period to submit comments on the SEC site.
As formerly reported by Cointelegraph, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, or CBOE, registered to record the VanEck Bitcoin ETF back in January. VanEck was one of the BTC ETF hopefuls back in 2017 when several companies were looking to obtain SEC approval to get a Bitcoin ETF.
At the time, the asset management outfit partnered with blockchain startup SolidX to file a joint Bitcoin ETF.
According to the details of the complaint, SolidX said VanEck acted in bad faith by going forward to submit a Bitcoin ETF according to its own work.
Together with the change in direction at the commission after Jay Clayton’s passing back in December 2020, firms in the U.S. are trying again for a Bitcoin ETF. Clayton’s SEC tenure watched the commission reject nine Bitcoin ETFs.
The unregulated nature of the Bitcoin area market was a popular stretch attached to every rejection. Throughout the period, the SEC regularly pointed to the issue for a cause for concern saying that price manipulation wasn’t hard to attain, thus a BTC ETF approval was off the table.
Earlier in March, New York-based asset management company WisdonTree submitted a Bitcoin ETF filing using the SEC. Meanwhile, some market commentators say BTC ETF approvals in Canada may spur the commission to reconsider its previous reticence.
Indeed, the month of February saw Canadian securities authorities approve a few Bitcoin ETFs, getting the first of these investment products in North America. Following the initial success of those ETFs, some companies are now looking to expand their catalogue by launch Ether (ETH) ETFs.