The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is kicking the can down the road one more time on a Bitcoin ETF proposal from Bitwise, a leading provider of index and cryptoasset funds.
Having already blown through a couple of deadlines after an initial February filing, the SEC is now suggesting that it needs a public comment period of about three weeks.
“In the recent filing, the SEC revealed that it has delayed its decision on whether to approve or disapprove Bitwise’s ETF, and also requested for a public comment from interested parties,” writes Ana Alexandre at Cointelegraph today. “The Commission thus asks interested persons to “provide written submissions of their views, data, and arguments with respect to the issues identified above, as well as any other concerns they may have with the proposal.”
Some commissioners, like Hester Pierce, have already put out their thoughts to the media about how the SEC should eventually greenlight one or more of these options.
Bitwise is, meanwhile, taking this pretty well.
“Bitwise considers the questions raised by the SEC… to be thoughtful and insightful,” a Bitwise representative told CryptoSlate, according to a recent piece by Mitchell Moos. “We appreciate the SEC’s efforts to gather comprehensive ETF information about both the bitcoin market in general and Bitwise’s specific filing, and encourage all experts with relevant answers to engage in the comment process.”
At the same time, another applicant is proposing an ETF that would include both Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings.
All of this suggests that the dam is ready to break, but many redditors looking at the situation are skeptical.
“I think they get to delay it some amount of times before they are forced to make a decision,” says Symphonic_Rainboom.
“Anyone know what that final deadline is for a real decision?”
“October iirc,” says krokodilmannchen. “Next is mid August.”
“Why even have a deadline if it can be delayed 5 times?” says Bob-Rossi.
Others downplay the significance of an ETF adoption.
“Bakkt, fidelity, tdameritrade… a ton of other institutions are on-boarding in one form or another… ETFs are becoming less significant,” says happyyellowball.
Still, an ETF announcement would be likely to move crypto markets. Stay tuned as we continue to look at SEC activity with a big magnifying glass!