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A Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) is not coming in the near future. The US Securities and Exchange Commission once again extended the revision period for three proposed ETFs, proposed by Bitwise Asset Management, Van Eck, and Wilshire Phoenix.
The new deadlines to decide have been pushed back to September 29 for Wilshire Phoenix, October 13 for the Bitwise fund, and October 28 for the Van Eck ETF.
In the first half of 2019, renewed optimism for the Bitcoin ETF helped boost the market sentiment. However, after BTC showed its strength, traders are making comments that mainstream involvement may not be a key factor. Robert Wiecko, project manager with Dash (DASH), commented on Twitter that an ETF was not actually needed:
Why so many people want crypto to become part of the casino so badly?
Remember - the house always wins. Who owns the house?
An ETF would add mainstream acceptance to BTC, but also expand the need to buy and store actual coins. However, BTC coins are already scarce, as a large part of them are inactive, or kept in cold storage.
BTC outperformed all altcoins in 2019, boosted by stablecoin-based trading and increased activity on exchanges giving access to Chinese traders. The leading coin posted a peak above $13,800 this year, and in August recovered to trade at $11,356.18.
The US SEC has upped its scrutiny of ETFs based on innovation, going as far as to curb the mention of 5G and blockchain in the fund’s name. ETFs struggled in the past year, but some niches remain more successful than others. ETF are seen as a safe haven to risk in other asset classes, and started gaining ground through gold and silver ETF following the 2008 financial crisis.
BTC is also expecting a boost from Bakkt’s physical delivery futures, which expect to start trading in the coming months. But the infusion of liquidity may be relatively small, as the BTC market itself has shown significant volumes growth in 2019.
Source: Cryptovest.com
