Less than a week since the joint rule-change proposal by Bitwise Investment Management and NYSE Arca to allow for a Bitcoin ETF was published to the Federal Registrar, another Bitcoin ETF rule-change proposal is also set to be published. The VanEck, SolidX and the Cboe BZX Exchange application which was resubmitted in late January is expected to be listed in the Federal Registrar on Wednesday, February 20th. This is according to the most recent version of the proposal that was submitted by the SEC to the Federal Registrar.
If it is indeed published on February 20th, the SEC will have a 45-day period to make a determination on whether to accept or deny the proposal. A third option will be to further delay the determination to the maximum of 240 days allowed by the law.
Within this 4 day period, the SEC will invite the public to comment on the rule change proposal, an exercise that should take approximately three weeks (to March 13th). After the comment period, the SEC will take about another 3 weeks (until April 5th) to make considerations taking into account the public comments.
The Bitwise/NYSE Arca Bitcoin ETF application’s 45-day deadline lapses a little sooner which means that there is a chance that by April 5th, there could be an approval to set up the first Bitcoin ETF under the US jurisdiction.
The Cboe had previously withdrawn its application with a similar request owing to the longest US government shutdown in history that lasted for the better part of January starting out towards the end of December 2018. A few days after the cancelation, the same request was refiled as promised and the application has been pending Federal Registrar listing until now.
Once approved, a Bitcoin ETF is expected to bring more liquidity into the Bitcoin markets and by extension the cryptocurrency industry. The Bitcoin ETF should be able to attract investors with deep pockets, who, for logistical reasons are unable to open a retail account with any of the available cryptocurrency exchanges.
