The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is to review a decision it made last month to deny a listing application for an ETF that tracks the price of the cryptocurrency bitcoin. News of the SEC filing on 24 April pushed bitcoin close to its all-time high.
The proposed ETF, the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, is the brainchild of the Winklevoss twins, who own a stake in Gemini, a bitcoin exchange. The SEC denied an application for listing the ETF on US exchange Bats on the grounds of “the risk of fraudulent activities due to the lack of regulation in major bitcoin markets” after more than three years of deliberation (See: Winklevoss-backed Bitcoin ETF halted by SEC).
The SEC judgement in March caused the price of bitcoin to drop 25% from all-time highs of $1327. However, bitcoin has rallied since then as global acceptance has continued to grow, with Japan the latest country to announce it would accept the currency as a legal payment method. Many market commentators argue a bitcoin ETF would open distribution channels to additional investors that would send the price of bitcoin higher.
The SEC has now approved a petition from Bats to reconsider its March ruling, sending the price of bitcoin back to levels seen before the initial decision in March. There is no word yet on when this judgement may come.
Bitcoin is the most widely used of several cryptocurrencies that allow near anonymous transactions between strangers without the need for a central authority such as a bank or government. Additional bitcoins are “mined” by highly sophisticated computers that are rewarded with payment in bitcoins for verifying transactions added to the blockchain, the distributed ledger at the heart of bitcoin.
The SEC is also mulling rule change applications from NYSE Arca that would allow it to list two other bitcoin ETFs, the Greyscale Bitcoin Trust and the SolidX Bitcoin Trust.