SEC Delays Decision On Grayscale's Bitcoin Spot ETF, Requests Public Comments About Proposal

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed a decision on a proposal to list and trade a Bitcoin BTC/USD ETF by Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

According to a notice, the agency has raised concerns about how Grayscale will head off share manipulation, fraud, and other possible issues in its proposal for the Bitcoin ETF.

The regulator wasn’t convinced that Grayscale’s proposal was designed to prevent alleged manipulation in the Bitcoin market. 

The SEC has now asked the public to comment on this proposal, giving interested parties 21 days to respond in writing. 

Grayscale applied to convert shares of GBTC into a spot Bitcoin ETF in October last year. 

Earlier this week, the SEC requested that investment manager Bitwise respond to similar concerns about its own spot bitcoin ETF proposal.

The SEC has already rejected spot bitcoin ETF applications from WisdomTree, Krypton, SkyBridge, and Fidelity.

Grayscale is the world’s largest digital asset manager, with $36.5 billion in assets under management as of Feb. 4. Its GBTC product accounts for over 71% of its total assets. 
Photo: SEC on flickr