The American asset management firms VanEck and ProShares applied for an Ethereum Futures ETF with the SEC on August 18. Today, after two days, the asset managers abruptly changed their decision and withdrew the ETF application.
At present, it remains unclear why both the asset managers chose to apply for ETF approval when eventually they had to withdraw it. Interestingly, the application and withdrawal dates of the VanEck and ProShares ETFs also coincide with each other.
SEC’s Still Silent on Crypto ETF Products
New to the recent ETF approval queue are VanEck and ProShares. Last week, the market giant applied for a bitcoin ETF approval. At that time, the firms also seemed quite optimistic about the Ethereum futures-based ETF and soon submitted their filing for the Ether ETF. However, due to some unknown reasons, they have withdrawn the applications just two days after filing them. Experts speculate the firms’ move as an attempt to gain popularity.
Global cryptocurrency market capitalization has crossed the $2 trillion mark just a month after bitcoin tumbled below $30,000. Now, speculations are re-emerging as to when the SEC will approve the exchange-traded funds that can hold the world’s first digital asset and closely trace its volatile price actions.
Back in 2013, the Winklevoss twins tried to gain SEC’s approval for a Bitcoin ETF product for the first time. At that time the currency was trading for less than $100. Today, when BTC’s price have immensely swung up and down, more than 15 asset managers are looking to jump aboard with their ETF filings. Currently, there are 12 active bitcoin ETF filings, and, none of them have been approved by the U.S. securities regulator.
As previously reported by CoinGape, the SEC has been silent on crypto ETFs for a very long while now. Some of the most prominent market giants waiting for application approval are multibillion-dollar Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), Ark Invest, Valkyrie, Invesco, Global X, and several others. Earlier in this year August, SEC Chief Gensler seemed slightly optimistic about the topic.
While there are indications that the commission may look more favourably upon bitcoin ETFs. Thus far, the SEC has approved Ether and Bitcoin for futures trading in the U.S at present, and this product is becoming popular, even amongst firms that has filed for a full fledged Bitcoin ETF in the past.
Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst for Bloomberg further analysed Gensler’s statement and tweeted:
Here’s the Gensler line we all dissecting. He does say limited to futures, but two things here: 1) He could be speaking relative to physical not *technically* limited to futures 2) SEC approved a ProFunds MF that wasn’t totally ltd to futures and ProShares filing is exactly same pic.twitter.com/G1CtdfkwRq
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) August 14, 2021
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