The Chamber of Digital Commerce, established to promote the acceptance and use of digital assets and blockchain-based technologies, has criticized the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for depriving U.S. investors of access to Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF).
In a statement, the Chamber of Digital Commerce said, “The time has come for U.S. investors to have access to a Bitcoin ETF that directly holds Bitcoin (BTC).”
Citing the Crypto Conundrum report, the object of which is to identify some of the most significant areas in which regulators and/or the crypto community believe a policy response is required, the Chamber of Digital Commerce called out “the SEC’s increasingly unjustifiable unwillingness to approve spot bitcoin ETF.”
The report demonstrates that the SEC has imposed regulatory hurdles unique to Bitcoin on applicants for a Bitcoin ETF. “And while issuers and other industry participants have addressed and mitigated the concerns identified in the SEC’s denials, it continues to arbitrarily reject every application.”
U.S. Retail Investors Limited to Direct Bitcoin Investments
The association has blamed the SEC for denying U.S. retail investors access to regulated bitcoin products and keeping them limited to direct bitcoin investments, “which don’t provide the investor protections that come with typical financial advisor relationships and the SEC’s registration and disclosure framework.”
Meanwhile, the SEC has also been criticized for its approach toward crypto companies and crypto assets, as the SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit has lodged some 200 lawsuits with at least 80 fraud investigations since 2017.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler also received flak for saying there is no reason to treat the crypto market differently from the rest of the capital markets just because it uses a different technology.
The Chamber of Digital Commerce concluded that the SEC’s ongoing denials are based not on the enumerated concerns but, instead, reflect a larger political agenda to obtain the ability to regulate the exchanges and platforms on which Bitcoin trades, an authority not currently vested with the SEC.
On the Flipside
- ProShares Short Bitcoin ETF (BITI) is the only ETF approved by the U.S. SEC with the goal of trading the inverse of Bitcoin’s daily performance.
Why You Should Care
The SEC’s approach to crypto overall has been largely seen as hostile.