The race to receive the coveted spot as the first Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) continues and Cboe Global Markets Inc believes it still has a chance to make it.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Cboe’s exchange operator’s president and chief operating officer Chris Concannon said that it was a matter of working through the issues that concern the SEC before an ETF can be approved. He believes Cboe can achieve this but recognizes the growth of a strong Bitcoin futures market may mean that a futures-based ETF may come first, rather than an exchange for the cryptocurrencies themselves.
What Concannon sees potentially problematic here, however, is that a futures-based ETF has never been done before, and it could be a struggle to find enough liquidity. Futures trading volumes have remained low compared with commodities contracts such as gold, although an ETF would certainly prompt a significant increase in trades. The SEC is hesitant to approve such an ETF until futures trading can provide sufficient liquidity, however.
Concannon said that he had learned there have been more articles than volume, describing the amount of media attention the market gets compared to its size as ”shocking”. He noted that the entire cryptocurrency market was only a fifth that of multinational technology company Apple.
Cboe was the first company to usher Bitcoin into mainstream finance during its bullish run in December last year, offering futures contracts for the cryptocurrency. Many interpreted this as a signal Wall Street was turning in favor of Bitcoin, with an ETF finally becoming foreseeable.
The SEC cited the potential for market manipulation in the nearly entirely unregulated market as the primary reason to deny approval, as was the case in the Winklevoss brothers rejection. The SEC said that they would require a surveillance sharing agreement with a large Bitcoin exchange to ensure no manipulation is taking place, of which the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust could not provide at the time.
Follow BitcoinNews.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bitcoinnewscom
Telegram Alerts from BitcoinNews.com at https://t.me/bconews
Image Courtesy: Pixabay
The post Cboe President Still Hopeful for First ETF Approval appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.