After a false start Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission gave its approval Wednesday for some investment companies to offer “spot bitcoin” exchange-traded funds.
The regulator’s highly anticipated move is expected to make bitcoin investing more accessible to Main Street investors, without requiring them to own the digital asset directly.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler made it clear in a statement that the agency remains wary. “While we approved the listing and trading of certain spot bitcoin ETP shares today, we did not approve or endorse bitcoin. Investors should remain cautious about the myriad risks associated with bitcoin and products whose value is tied to crypto,” he wrote in a statement posted on the SEC’s website.
The SEC had a deadline of January 10 to offer a decision for just one of the 11 firms that applied to offer bitcoin ETFs. On Wednesday it offered approval to all of 11 of them.
Thought we already had Bitcoin ETFs (i.e. BITO, BTF, BITS).
I think it was already allowed in Europe, but now in the US as well