SEC: Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have similarities with gold

The United States Securities and Exchanges Commission [SEC]’s Commissioner, Hester Peirce aka Crypto Mom, spoke about her the reason behind her disagreement with SEC decision on rejecting the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF, in an podcast episode of What Bitcoin Did. The commissioner also spoke about whether she is a hodler of Bitcoin [BTC] or any other cryptocurrency.

Despite being hailed as the crypto mom, Hester stated that she does not hodl Bitcoin [BTC] or other any cryptocurrency. She revealed that the main reason was she does not want her objectivity questioned and said that it is “better that way”.

She went on to speak about the issues she has with the SEC’s decision. The commission stated:

“Now, I think that you can look at their decision and you can see sort of some of the themes running through their decision and what I took issue with is that I think the decision looked a little bit below what the filing was. so what the that filing was is in exchange had come in with an exchange-traded product that they wanted to list and have trade on their exchange”

Hester stated that according to her it is important to ensure that the ETF meets all the requirements laid out for product trading on the exchange it is proposed for and looking into the underlying Bitcoin market and being uncertain about it is not supposed to be the point of concern for the commission. However, the point of focus should be on the precautions and measures taken by the exchange for the exchange traded fund to be traded on the platform.

She further added:

“And I think there also, you know, are concerns that we sometimes look at crypto and we say, well it is very different from any other asset class and that’s to some degree true but I think there are similarities with other asset classes if you look at something like gold.”

This includes the factor that the asset has several different ICO
marketplace around the world, out of which some are more transparent in comparison to others, she added. Furthermore, the Commissioner stressed that the commission should not place concerns on assets which have not been placed on other asset classes.