U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission officials sent comments to a number of potential issuers of bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), just hours after the companies filed documents detailing fees for their proposed products, a person familiar with the comments said.
The issuers were expected to file updated documents on Tuesday, the person said. The comments addressed minor details in the amended S-1 Forms rather than material changes and were not intended to impact the timeline for potential regulatory approval. Issuers hoping to launch spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US, including BlackRock, Grayscale and Fidelity, disclosed their expected fees in filings on Monday.
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart, who is closely following Bitcoin ETF applications, tweeted that it was “borderline unthinkable” for applicants to receive feedback from the SEC on amended applications on the same day.
Monday's comments show that SEC officials are still in dialogue with potential ETF issuers, most of which proposed creating spot Bitcoin ETFs last summer. The agency faces a deadline of January 10, 2024 – this Wednesday – for one of Ark and 21 Shares' applications. A flurry of amended filings from issuers reflecting their discussions with SEC officials in recent weeks have raised hopes that the agency will approve spot Bitcoin ETFs for trading in the United States. Those hopes were boosted when exchanges such as Nasdaq, NYSE Arca and Cboe BZX filed amended 19b-. 4 documents on Friday that another person shared with CoinDesk last week were said to match the S-1 filings.
Both 19b-4 and S-1 filings must be deemed effective by the SEC before an ETF can begin trading.
Proponents of Bitcoin ETFs hope that a regulated financial product will allow traditional financial institutions and everyday retail investors to gain access to the price of the world's oldest cryptocurrency without having to set up wallets or otherwise deal with new financial structures. The SEC has so far rejected every application for a spot Bitcoin ETF dating back to 2013.
Although the agency has not yet publicly announced how it will decide on the latest applications, the amount of feedback it has provided and the amended submissions – not to mention the speed with which it is responding – suggests that this will be the case with almost a dozen applications ready for takeoff.