Cboe Pulls Their Bitcoin (BTC) ETF Application

In the CNBC’s ETF Edge show, the CEO of VanEck Associates Corp., Jan Van Eck revealed that Cboe has pulled their Bitcoin (BTC) Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) application filed in 2018 with the SEC.

As the reason for the withdrawal, Van Eck blamed the fact that the SEC has shut down due to the political stalemate that the US government found itself in.

“We were trying to make our case clearly and convincingly to the regulators, but we obviously can’t have meetings when they’re shut down,” explained VanEck to CNBC. “Instead of trying to slip through or something, we just had the application pulled,” he stated in yesterday’s interview.

SEC’s basic functioning active

Donald Trump’s administration disagreement with Democrats in Congress resulted in the full-scale lockdown of some government bodies as the two parties try to reach some form of agreement considering the funding of the border wall between USA and Mexico.

While waiting for politics to resolve the issue, the SEC is experiencing a shutdown of all but it’s basic functions.

“Due to the ongoing federal government shutdown, the SEC is currently operating in accordance with the agency’s plan for operating during a shutdown. Effective Thursday, Dec. 27 and until further notice, the agency will have a very limited number of staff members available.  The SEC has staff available to respond to emergency situations involving market integrity and investor protection, including law enforcement,” states the announcement on the SEC’s official website.

Answering questions

Jan Van Eck, answering CNBC’s host questions about the SEC’s concerns regarding the lack of Bitcoin’s market surveillance and custody for cryptocurrencies, revealed that VanEck and SolidX Partners Inc. had all the required answers ready for the commission, but, due to the shutdown, are unable to present them.

The reason why partners refused to wait for the SEC’s full-service reestablishment is still unknown, but during the interview, other possible reasons were made public.

Interestingly, Mr Van Eck, maybe unwittingly, revealed his concern with the current position of Bitcoin compared to gold with investors, who allegedly prioritize the precious metal over the number one cryptocurrency in 2019.

Still, the CEO of VanEck reassured the public that partners will re-file for the approval once the SEC “gets going again.”

The most probable Bitcoin ETF proposal

To summarize, VanEck and SolidX’s Bitcoin ETF application was generally thought of like the one with the biggest chance of getting approved by the SEC.

The Cboe, VanEck, and SolidX partnership filed the application for Bitcoin ETFs with the SEC in June 2018. Upon the possible approval, BTC ETFs would be listed on the Cboe’s BZX exchange.

However, the SEC postponed their decision a few times, prolonging it into 2019 even though the commission guaranteed to decide on the matter in 2018.

Cboe’s ETF withdrawal didn’t hurt Bitcoin investors much as it resulted only in a slight decline in Bitcoin’s price, which dropped 1%. BTC is valued $3,589 per coin at the time of writing.