News out of today’s cryptocurrency sector shows that the Ontario Securities Commission has now greenlighted a new Bitcoin ETF administrated by Purpose Investments.
Through a “multilateral instrument passport system,” the Canadian regulator has approved allowing Purpose Investments to create an aggregate fund based on Bitcoin values that can be traded during a market day.
Now, some argue that the U.S. should be not too far behind.
“It’s a similar approach to the way I strategically asked my wife to marry me. Around the 15th or 20th time I asked, she finally said yes,” Jeff Kilburg, founder and CEO of KKM Financial and a partner at Valkyrie Finance Group, told CNBC, in suggesting that the years-long renewal of Bitcoin ETF proposals will have a cumulative effect.
Unlike whatever happened with Kilburg and his wife, though, the ruling by the regulator has vast potential for creating additional on-ramps into one of the most promising aspects of modern finance for small investors.
“Bitcoin has been gaining popularity among individual and institutional investors for years now, however it remains a difficult asset to gain efficient and secure exposure to,” said Som Seif, founder and CEO of Purpose Investments in a press release today. “Purpose Bitcoin ETF will change the landscape for investors by giving them a simple, efficient and affordable way to directly access the cryptocurrency.”
Last year, we spent quite a bit of time reporting on ultimately unsuccessful efforts to get nearly a dozen Bitcoin ETF projects approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Repeatedly, onlookers characterized the process as “slow walking,” where despite some individual positive remarks by commissioners, the SEC generally took its time in considering Bitcoin ETF evaluations before ultimately rejecting them. Long public comment periods and other bottlenecks seemed like busy work for the regulator, and the fact that none of these funds were eventually approved suggests that some of this may have been stalling for time.
Now, the pressure will be on the SEC to do its work and eventually approve a Bitcoin ETF for American investors.
