U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) official Hester Peirce sees the delayed approval of a spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) as “a waste of time.”
In a new interview Along with Natalie Brunell, Peirce, one of the SEC’s five appointed commissioners, says the regulator should reflect on what it believes are flaws in the approval process.
“This has baffled me for years, because I look at the standards we have and say, ‘Look, if a product meets the standards, it doesn’t really matter if we like the underlying thing.’ The innovation with exchange traded products is [they] give investors access to a wide range of assets – securities and non-securities – through this vehicle, which is a securities vehicle, and that means it’s easier for them to have it in their portfolios. Maybe it makes it easier for a lot of people to interact with an asset if it’s in that package.
I understand that Bitcoin was something new, something new. And so it took some time for the agency to get its arms around it, but actually that’s not the question we should be asking when we approve these exchange-traded products. What matters is how the product itself will be marketed. And so I think it’s just a little bit of fear of the unknown.
The SEC approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs last week, after years of rejecting applications. However, the regulator already gave the green light for Bitcoin futures ETFs in 2021.
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