SEC Postpones key decision on Cryptocurrency

Over $9 billion wiped off bitcoin's value after SEC postpones key decision on a cryptocurrency ETF

The price of bitcoin fell sharply on Wednesday.
It comes after the Securities and Exchange Commission postponed its decision on whether it would approve a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposed by VanEck and SolidX.
This is VanEck's third attempt to push a bitcoin ETF through.

Bitcoin fell sharply on Wednesday after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) delayed a decision on a proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), which would have been the first financial product of its kind.

Cryptocurrency markets fell as a result. Bitcoin was down around 6 percent from 24 hours ago at 4:12 p.m. New York time, trading at just over $6,300, according to data from CoinDesk.

Investment firm VanEck teamed up with Solid X, a financial service company, earlier this year in a bid to launch an ETF that is backed by actual bitcoins rather than futures. An ETF is a financial product that tracks the price of an asset and is listed on an exchange. It means that investors don't actually have to buy the underlying asset.

ETF's are seen as a way for institutional investors to get into cryptocurrency investing in a safer way than buying bitcoin on a crypto-asset exchange.

This is VanEck's third attempt to push a bitcoin ETF through, having been rejected by the SEC twice previously. On this occasion, the SEC said that it is pushing out its decision until September 30.

Bitcoin, which is the world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization or value, has fallen dramatically from the the near-$20,000 record high it hit in December 2017. But bitcoin has recovered from June, when it fell below $6,000. And interest in the virtual currency appears to have increased. Bitcoin's share of the entire cryptocurrency market is at its highest level this year and near where it was when the digital coin hit its highest price level in history.

There are a number of applications underway to get a bitcoin ETF listed, but so far none have been approved by the SEC. A second attempt by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of crypto exchange Gemini, to list their ETF was recently rejected by the SEC.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/08/bitcoin-price-falls-after-sec-postpones-key-etf-decision.html

Comments

There Is No ‘Bitcoin’: What the SEC Doesn’t Get About Cryptocurrency

Edan Yago is the founder of CementDAO , an effort to bring together stablecoins into a unified ecosystem. He previously was the CEO and co-founder of software firm Epiphyte and helped set up the industry associations DATA and the Stablecoin Foundation. The views expressed here are his own. —————————- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been gone to significant lengths in an attempt to understand the crypto asset space. This effort is to be applauded. However, the SEC has failed to come to terms with one fundamental aspect of crypto assets and systems. Namely, properly constructed crypto systems do not involve “persons” or “entities” and do not represent a form of property. For this reason, they do not have any analogue in the traditional financial world, nor can they fall under financial regulation. In the traditional financial world, assets are a claim on a specific property. For example, a commodity, shares in a company or a debt o...

Ex-Russian Economics Minister Claims Crypto as the Right Model for Money Supply

Russia’s former Minister of Economics and Trade, Herman Gref, has spoken out in favour of cryptocurrencies and their transformational nature as a future threat to the financial sector’s status quo. Gref, who was Russian Economics minister between 2000 and 2007 is CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of the largest Russian bank Sberbank. In a recent forum, he suggested that over time centralised money supply models would give way to new innovations. However, Gref did suggest that such change would take time and certainly wasn’t imminent, although he felt that blockchain adoption was a much nearer prospect. Cryptocurrency adoption would, in his view, take another decade before it could offer a challenge to current banking systems , commenting that, as yet“… it’s not likely that any state is ready to part with the centralised money supply model.” Talking of DLT the ex-minister suggested that the significance of the new technology is starting to find its way into fina...

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the temporary suspension of trading in the securities Bitcoin Tracker One (“CXBTF”) and Ether Tracker One

The regulator pointed to “a lack of current, consistent and accurate information” in the two crypto investment vehicles issued by Swedish firm XBT Provider AB following their entry into the US market last month. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Sunday issued an order to halt the trading in Bitcoin Tracker One (CXBTF) and Ether Tracker One (CETHF), two investment products that track cryptocurrencies. The two exchange-traded notes (ETNs) are issued by Swedish company XBT Provider AB, a subsidiary of U.K.-based Coinshares Holdings. The two products have been listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange since 2015 and entered the U.S. market last month under the ticker CXBTF, enabling domestic investors to access and invest in the crypto ETNs in an over-the-counter (OTC) market with their U.S. dollars. SEC_News ✔ @SEC_News The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the temporary suspension of trading in the securities Bitc...

Bitcoin News

Search This Blog