Late Friday afternoon the Securities and Exchange Commission released their ruling on the proposed Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, what would have been the first Bitcoin ETF. Bitcoin's had traded as high as $1,300 per coin on Friday prior to the announcement from the SEC, but following the ruling, the price had fallen more than 20% at one point, leveling off down 10%.
What Happened?
The Security and Exchange Commission released their ruling denying the proposed Bitcoin ETF and within the ruling, the SEC's reasoning for denying the application follows below.
"As discussed further below, the Commission is disapproving this proposed rule change because it does not find the proposal to be consistent with Section 6(b)(5) of the Exchange Act, which requires, among other things, that the rules of a national securities exchange be designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices and to protect investors and the public interest. The Commission believes that, in order to meet this standard, an exchange that lists and trades shares of commodity-trust exchange-traded products (“ETPs”) must, in addition to other applicable requirements, satisfy two requirements that are dispositive in this matter. First, the exchange must have surveillance-sharing agreements with significant markets for trading the underlying commodity or derivatives on that commodity. And second, those markets must be regulated."
In plain English the SEC is saying the Bitcoin ETF was rejected because the underlying commodity, in this case Bitcoin, needs to be regulated, which that’s the whole purpose of Bitcoin, it's not regulated. Bitcoin was designed to be unregulated, with no ties to banking institutions or governments. With relationships with either of those entities, the currency therefore is an unregulated form of investment. The reason this matters is because at the end of the day, the SEC is required to do its best at protecting the general investing public from fraudulent and easily manipulated investments. And because Bitcoin is unregulated in some terms, the SEC can't allow the ETF. Continue reading "Bitcoin ETF Rejected" →
