Investors aren’t likely to see a Bitcoin-spot exchange-traded fund offered in the US anytime soon, according to VanEck Chief Executive Officer Jan Van Eck.
“No chance,” Van Eck said as part of a panel at the Bitcoin 2023 conference in Miami Beach on Thursday. “Even if the SEC loses the Grayscale litigation, they’ll just drag their feet. So I just don’t see that in the next year and a half.” Van Eck was referring to asset manager Grayscale Investments’ ongoing lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission in which it’s attempting to convert its Bitcoin trust into an ETF.
Jan van Eck, chief executive officer of VanEck, speaks during the Bitcoin 2023 conference in Miami Beach, Florida.
Van Eck also mentioned recent filings from rival ETF firms for Ether-futures-based funds — at least three have already been reworked or withdrawn just days after they were initially submitted.
“The SEC will drag their feet,” Van Eck said. “They have so many regulatory tools.”
The crypto industry has for a long time wanted a Bitcoin ETF in the US, which regulators have been very hesitant to approve. Over the years, a number of issuers have attempted to a spot product. Regulators have in the past cited market manipulation, among other things, as a reason for denying approval.
Bitcoin-futures funds have been trading since 2021, though, and many of the issues that analysts had warned about ahead of that launch have since fallen to the wayside.
Van Eck’s company runs a number of ETFs and is known for its fund lineup. In 2021, it launched the VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF (ticker XBTF) which is based on Bitcoin futures. Meanwhile, the SEC at the end of 2021 rejected a VanEck proposal for an ETF that would directly hold Bitcoin.
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