Jay Clayton – former Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – thinks the regulator will sooner or later approve the launch of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). The agency recently decided to delay the applications of BlackRock and numerous other finance giants who displayed ambitions to introduce such a product.
Clayton believes that “we could see progress in the following 45 days” (the period after which the watchdog is expected to announce its decision once again).
Spot Bitcoin ETF – ‘Inevitable’
The latest individual to give his two cents on the trendy spot BTC ETF topic is Jay Clayton (an American attorney who served as the Chairman of the SEC between 2017 and 2020). In his view, the “dichotomy between a futures product and cash product can’t go on forever,” meaning that the Commission will take the “inevitable” decision to eventually greenlight a spot ETF.
He failed to give a direct answer to the question of whether the Commission would have already approved such a product should he have been in charge. However, he believes the securities regulator might inch closer to saying “yes” in October rather than coming up with excuses to delay or reject the failings.
“The SEC has been given time from the DC Circuit to reassess and perhaps come up with reasons. I don’t see those; there might be some, but I don’t see those.”
Despite the numerous attempts from local companies, the US is among the countries where a spot BTC ETF has not seen the light of day yet. Many crypto proponents think the SEC might change its hostile stance this time since some of the organizations that filed to launch that type of product include finance behemoths like BlackRock, Invesco, Fidelity, WisdomTree, VanEck, and others.
According to some experts, such as Bloomberg Intelligence, the approval could have come a few days ago. However, the SEC (which also had the option to reject or delay the applications) decided to give itself another 45 days to evaluate the pros and cons of the propositions.
High Demand for Bitcoin
Clayton, who previously opined that the SEC will find it “hard to resist” the spot BTC ETF applications, highlighted the strong appetite for BTC shown by retail and institutional investors. He also maintained that “it is clear that Bitcoin is not a security:”
“Bitcoin is something that retail investors want access to, the institutional investors want access to, and importantly, some of our most trusted providers want to provide this product to the retail public.”
Not putting BTC among the lists of securities is something that the current management of the SEC agrees on. Chair Gary Gensler has claimed that the asset is the only cryptocurrency he could classify as a commodity (or in the same basket as precious metals, oil, and natural gas).
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