SEC Chair Gensler Reveals Regulator Is ‘Taking a New Look’ at Spot Bitcoin ETF Filings

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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler has revealed that the regulator is taking a new look at spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications based on recent court rulings. “We had in the past denied a number of these applications, but the courts here in the District of Columbia weighed in on that,” Gensler explained.

Gensler: ‘We’re Taking a New Look’

The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, answered some questions regarding spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications in an interview with CNBC on Thursday.

“We have, I think, between eight and a dozen filings … that’s going through the process right now,” Gensler explained, emphasizing that as the chairman of the SEC, he’s not going to prejudge any particular filing. According to public records, there are currently 13 spot bitcoin ETF applications pending at the SEC.

“As you might know, we had in the past denied a number of these applications, but the courts here in the District of Columbia weighed in on that,” the SEC chairman noted, adding:

So we’re taking a new look at this based upon those court rulings.

Gensler’s comments stemmed from a legal dispute involving the SEC’s denial of Grayscale Investments’ application to convert its bitcoin trust (GBTC) into a spot bitcoin ETF. The court subsequently ordered the SEC to reevaluate the crypto asset manager’s application.

Commenting on whether the SEC has objection to the court ruling in the Grayscale case, Gensler said: “We do everything at the Securities and Exchange Commission within the laws Congress has passed and how the courts interpret them. We look keenly to the economics.” Gensler similarly told Bloomberg this week that the securities regulator does things according to its authorities and how the courts interpret them.

Regarding the crypto market, Chair Gensler stated: “I would say this about the crypto field … There’s a lot of noncompliance. Noncompliance with the securities laws that are there to help give you the disclosure so you can make the investment decision, but also to protect you against fraud and manipulation. And there’s been far too much fraud and bad actors in the crypto field. There’s a lot of noncompliance, not only with the securities laws but other laws around any money laundering and protecting the public against bad actors there.” He further stressed:

This is a field where you still don’t have the fundamental information on many of these projects. And the intermediaries of the so-called crypto exchanges are commingling and doing things that we do not allow anywhere else in our financial system.

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