The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday approved nearly a dozen exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that hold Bitcoin, allowing them to trade funds invested directly in the cryptocurrency for the first time.
The SEC has approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs from several large companies, including BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale Investments, as the SEC faces a deadline to rule on at least one of the applications.
“We believe the most sustainable path forward is to allow these Spot Bitcoin ETP shares to be listed and traded,” Gensler said in a statement.
However, he stressed that Wednesday's SEC approval is limited to ETFs that hold Bitcoin.
“This is in no way an indication of the Commission's willingness to approve listing criteria for crypto-asset securities,” Gensler said.
“Additionally, this approval does not imply anything about the Commission's opinion regarding the status of other crypto assets under federal securities laws or the status of non-compliance with federal securities laws by particular crypto market participants. ' he continued.
The decision came after the U.S. District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled in August that the SEC had wrongly denied Grayscale's Spot Bitcoin ETF application. The agency has previously rejected all applications for these funds.
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, a Republican appointee and early supporter of the cryptocurrency industry, called the agency's decision Wednesday “an unnecessary but consequential end to a saga.”
“More than a decade after the first Spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Product (ETP) application, the European Commission has finally approved multiple applications by exchanges to allow the listing and trading of Spot Bitcoin ETPs. ” Peirce said in a statement. .
“This story probably would have lasted well over a decade without DC Circuit Ex Machina,” she added.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry (R-Ark.) and Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), Chairman of the Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Inclusion Subcommittee, have announced that Bitcoin ETF called the spot approval “a historic milestone for the future of financial institutions.” Digital asset ecosystem. ”
“While we continue to need legislation that provides clarity and certainty for digital assets, the actions taken today significantly improve the SEC's enforcement regulatory record,” they said in a statement.
Mr. McHenry and Mr. Hill added: “We are pleased that investors and the market will finally have greater access to this generation of technology.”
This long-awaited decision came after the SEC's X account (formerly Twitter) was hacked on Tuesday and caused confusion by falsely announcing the approval of a Spot Bitcoin ETF.
The fake announcement was leaked online for about 30 minutes, then removed and replaced with a denial by authorities.
“The @SECGov
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