Following the Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent rejection of the asset manager’s Spot ETF application, BlackRock has refiled its application to register a Bitcoin exchange traded fund with amendments.
BlackRock refiles application
The SEC had requested additional information from all entities that applied for Bitcoin spot ETFs in June, expressing concerns on the lack of sufficient details regarding the partnering cryptocurrency exchange’s ability to prevent manipulative BTC trading activities.
The SEC noted that these proposals haven’t been rejected outright, and can be resubmitted after providing required information as requested by the commission. Specifically, a surveillance sharing agreement (SSA) will allow entities to share customer surveillance information. This addition has been made by SEC to allow it to flag any entity if they see any suspicious cryptocurrency trades.
In effect, BlackRock has attempted to sway SEC’s decision in its favour by giving regulators more power over information.
A few hours later, five organisations, including Invesco, WisdomTree, Valkyrie, ARK Invest, and Fidelity—along with the representative exchange, Cboe, resubmitted their filing for Bitcoin spot ETFs to the SEC. All five have chosen Coinbase as their partnered cryptocurrency exchange.
On July 3rd, BlackRock joined the fray. BlackRock similarly named Coinbase as the exchange to oversee Bitcoin trading activities, in collaboration with the Nasdaq stock exchange.
JUST IN: BlackRock has re-filed for spot bitcoin ETF, the resubmission was dated 6/29, Nasdaq just posted tho. They just added Coinbase like everyone else. pic.twitter.com/UGq46DdLgu
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) July 3, 2023
BlackRock had resubmitted its Spot ETF filing on June 30th, but the resubmission was made public in this week.
As such, all six organisations have proposed a Spot ETF with Coinbase as their chosen crypto exchange partner, despite ongoing legal action against Coinbase and other exchanges such as Binance.
Regulatory overreach?
In a response to a legal complaint last week, Coinbase said that the SEC violated the company’s due process rights and its legal action “constitutes an extraordinary abuse of process.”
The SEC has faced scrutiny over its abrasive approach towards the cryptocurrency space, with key players even within its own administration labelling the approach as ‘regulation by enforcement’. The SEC has not granted any approval for a Spot Bitcoin ETF, expressing concerns about investor protections and market manipulation issues. At the same time, the administration has approved riskier futures-based financial products, which has caused a lot of head-scratching.
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