“The Bitcoin ETF Is Coming”


The Bitcoin ETF is only a matter of time – at least that is how statements by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce can be interpreted.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce is cautiously optimistic about the approval of a Bitcoin ETF in the US. At the Crypto Finance Conference, a conference specializing in the regulatory framework of the crypto industry in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Peirce expressed his confidence that the ETF would come.


I think that at some point we will see a Bitcoin ETF

she said in a talk with blockchain expert David Wachsman. In their opinion, the SEC had already delayed approval at this point for too long, and approval is now becoming more and more complex. After all, the crypto market is significantly larger than it was two years ago. According to Peirce, the regulator’s responsibility has risen proportionally. At this point it is also “much more relevant which one [der vielen verschiedenen ETF-Anträge] approved first ”, said the Commissioner at the conference. A few years ago there were only a few individual applications, these days the SEC can hardly save itself from the flood of applications.

At least three Bitcoin ETFs are currently still pending approval. The Valkyrie Digital Assets ETF, the Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust from Fidelity and the VanEck Bitcoin ETF. The latter is now in “the next round”: Those interested can contact the Security and Exchange Commission Leave comments on the security.

The Commission invites and encourages interested persons to comment on the proposed rule change,

it says in the paper.

The pressure on the SEC is increasing

The fact that the SEC cannot hold off the industry forever is now a consensus among the authorities. The repeated rejection made the procedure more difficult than simplified. Now the pressure for a regulated approval is greater than ever. Logically, an asset that has already crossed the trillion-dollar market capitalization threshold should be treated differently than a penny stick.

Peirce is probably one of the benevolent commissioners within the agency. Ever since she openly advertised the approval of an exchange-traded index fund based on Bitcoin in an interview with Forbes, she has had the reputation of being a “crypto mom”. She made her displeasure about the restrictive course of the authority clear: Those interested in crypto would have to continue to use de facto insecure investment vehicles if they want to participate in the Bitcoin rate. MicroStrategy shares, which have almost the reputation of some kind of replacement ETF, also fall into this category.

At the Crypto Finance Conference, Peirce said: “I have said several times that I believe the standard that the agency applies to be wrong.”

But a look abroad could also help. Because while the US continues to wait for the approval of its first BTC index fund, the immediate neighborhood can happily speculate. As we have already reported, two Bitcoin ETFs were approved in Canada in February: The ETFs “BTCC” and “Evolve EBIT” have since been traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The fact that the world is still intact there (and the crowd is gigantic) could possibly be the decisive factor. Peirce said at the conference: “One advantage is that there are countries that are moving forward.”

The Commissioner is certain that this will also happen in the USA at some point – but she is silent about the time horizon. “I am optimistic that it will happen. But I can’t give you a time frame ”, Peirce concludes her credo.