BlackRock, Fidelity, Other Spot Bitcoin ETF Applicants Set To Meet With The SEC Next Week

BlackRock, Fidelity and other spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) applicants are reportedly set to have a meeting with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) next week after all applicants have re-filed their applications, filling the necessary requirements, which could deem their documents inadequate, including the name and function of their security-sharing partner.

The information came from the Twitter handle @Bias Knox, who claims to be a Securities lawyer in the cryptocurrency world, which was later retweeted by Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas.

“Applicants are meeting w/SEC trading and markets next week Re #BTC ETF. Should provide some insight whether spot ETF has legs,” the tweet read and noted that the filing “would require amendments to Safeguarding rule.”

Balchunas agreed with the Securities lawyer and added, “Spot bitcoin ETF filers and SEC meeting next week, according to this guy who we have found to be [a] reliable expert on this stuff.. and honestly they should meet, they def ‘need to talk’ IMO.”

The ETF analyst later reminded his followers that the meeting is indeed happening but him tweeting about it is just his way of sharing things he finds “interesting or useful in all this from legit sources.”

BlackRock’s filling for spot Bitcoin ETF pushed the price of Bitcoin which eventually rallied when other traditional financial giants followed suit.

BlackRock’s interest in Bitcoin is a bullish move but many are still wondering about the timing of the filing and what could be the reason for this revived interest in providing services related to the world’s largest crypto asset by market capitalization.

“There is currently a high demand from investors who are interested in investing in Bitcoin; however, they want to invest through large, regulated institutions. Unfortunately, large institutions cannot offer it because Bitcoin is not a security and it doesn’t fit their existing compliance framework, making regulatory implications uncertain. Fear of operating outside the bounds of their usual activities, institutions are reluctant to touch it,” Blockstation CEO Jai Waterman explained to International Business Times.

“To overcome this challenge, some institutions are exploring the use of ETFs as a means to offer Bitcoin to the public. By using an ETF structure, investors are enabled to have quasi-access to trading bitcoin through regulated institutions,” said Walterman, who prior to Blockstation, founded illions, an ERP cloud blockchain accounting company and invented Cross Company Automation, a process to automate internal and external data exchange across multiple independent organizations. He added that this kind of approach might “gain significant traction with a segment of the market.”

But Waterman also underlined that Bitcoin’s fundamental aspects like its limited supply and “the ability for individuals to obtain and hold it in their own wallets, giving them complete control over their assets” would be “compromised when Bitcoin is offered through an ETF,” explaining that in ETF, “the investor has no control or ownership of actual Bitcoin.”

The Blockstation CEO suggested that to address this issue “there is a need for solutions that enable Bitcoin to be converted into a security while still enabling investors, who desire it, to take custody of the actual Bitcoin.”

Bitcoin, the world’s first-ever crypto asset saw a 0.012% loss and was trading in the red zone at $30,384.85 with a 24-hour trading volume up by 50.17% at $19,662,858,081 as of 12:13 p.m. ET on Thursday, based on the latest data from CoinMarketCap.