When Bitcoin ETF? Not Any Time Soon, But Maybe by 2020For the first time in more than a year, there are no active bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposals pending before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Money manager VanEck, financial services firm
SolidX and Cboe BZX Exchange withdrew a highly-anticipated proposal Tuesday, citing an ongoing U.S. government shutdown as the reason. The proposal, first filed last June, faced a final deadline of February 27 for approval or rejection. Due to the shutdown, many legal experts anticipated that the SEC would reject the proposal outright rather than let it be approved by default.
VanEck CEO Jan van Eck said the companies will “re-file and re-engage in the discussions” with the SEC when the shutdown ends, he did not provide a timeline for when this may happen. And indeed, it is unclear when the government will reopen – while the U.S. Senate was set to vote on two different bills that could potentially re-open the government, neither bill passed.
https://www.coindesk.com/heres-whats-next-for-bitcoin-etf-prospects
Apparently VanEck SolidX Trust is decided to withdraw their proposal and not to wait final deadline. Maybe a little strange decision, but obviously they realized chances for approval are actually 0 at this moment. Maybe it is good that this chapter is finally ended, at least there will be no false hopes that
BTC ETF can make some changes this year.
Again, I don't think that the bitcoin ETF is actually as relevant as what people make it out to be.
Sure, an approval would mean a short term pump in prices, but apart from that fact, what else does it actually bring tangibly to help the bitcoin ecosystem? In my opinion, pretty much nothing. And there are also concerns of furthering market manipulation if bitcoin ETFs were to be approved, though that can't be stopped if it does happen.
The point is that to the average bitcoin user that transacts on the network, the ETFs mean absolutely nothing. It's going to be mostly used by institutional investors.
But yeah, I personally think that there is virtually no chance at this stage that a bitcoin ETF is going to get approved. Not any time soon, anyways.