Will The SEC Approve A Spot Bitcoin ETF In Early January?

The SEC has recently authorised another coin ETF, but it will be some time till the first one enters the market. There are various elements that will determine when and if an ETF is authorised, including the SEC's own guidelines and the general market.

The SEC has been working on building an approval procedure for Bitcoin ETFs before last year, when it received a number of petitions from businesses wanting to list the items they sell on U.S. exchanges. At this present, there are just two operational Bitcoin ETFs: GBTC and ProShares. Both have been cleared by the SEC for listing on U.S. exchanges by their respective sponsors, but approval still rests on whether or not the agency sees fit to accept them in time for their anticipated debuts in early January 2019 (GBTC) and late January 2019 (ProShares).

The SEC Approves A Spot Bitcoin ETF In In January

We are reaching the first monday of January and the spot bitcoin ETF market is still highly alive. Earlier this week, the SEC published a statement declaring that they are not going to approve a bitcoin ETF before the end of 2017. This announcement came following a request by Van Eck Associates Corp for the listing of its SolidX Bitcoin Shares on CBOE and CME markets.

The SEC has been quite busy these last several months with multiple requests for new goods to be listed on its exchange systems. In fact, there were two requests for new cryptos to be added this year alone. One of these petitions was by Van Eck Associates Corp and it sought for SolidX Bitcoin Shares to be listed on both CBOE and CME markets.

This request by the firm of Van Eck Associates Corp was submitted in late November 2017 and it was approved by the SEC within around two weeks later. The licencing process took around three months before it was authorised by the SEC and it enables investors who seek to purchase or sell crypto via exchanges like CBOE or CME to do so without having to pay additional fees or taxes when acquiring or selling crypto through such exchanges.