SEC Rejects Vaneck Bitcoin Spot Market ETF Over Price Manipulation Concerns

On Friday, November 12, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected Vaneck’s bitcoin spot market exchange-traded fund (ETF). The U.S. regulator noted that the denial was due to the lack of prevention toward “fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices.”

• Following the approval of a few bitcoin ETFs that leverage future markets, the SEC has rejected Vaneck’s bitcoin spot market ETF on Friday. So far, the U.S. regulator has not approved any bitcoin ETFs that are tethered to spot market prices.
• In its ruling, the SEC explains spot market ETF offerings have not “met its burden” when it comes to “[protecting] investors and the public interest.” The Vaneck ETF was turned down over “the requirement that the rules of a national securities exchange be “designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices.”
• For one, standards need to include “surveillance-sharing agreements,” as they “provide a necessary deterrent to manipulation because they facilitate the availability of information needed to fully investigate a manipulation if it were to occur,” the SEC ruling details.
• The SEC also cited the denial of the Winklevoss ETF the two investors tried to get approved years ago. In the case of most commodity-trust ETPs, the fund must enter into some kind of “surveillance-sharing agreements” or “Intermarket Surveillance Group (“ISG”) membership” tied to the type of market, the U.S. regulator’s ruling explains.

• The ruling details that the fund BZX believes “such manipulation concerns have been sufficiently mitigated, and that the growing and quantifiable investor protection concerns should [be] sufficient to justify dispensing with the requisite surveillance-sharing agreement.”
• The SEC ruling concludes that the central consideration right now for the regulator is the “potential manipulation of bitcoin.”

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