The US Securities and Exchange Commission opened a forum to solicit investor feedback and comments on the topic of proposed rule changes. This change had to do with the company Grayscale and its Bitcoin trust. The question was whether the company should be permitted to convert a Bitcoin Trust and let it become an ETF which is spot based.
A filing notice proposed this change so that shares of Grayscale’s BTC Trust could be listed and traded. It generated a lot of positive comments which lean towards approval of this rule change. According to Bloomberg’s senior analyst for ETF, Eric Balchunas, 95% of those who commented are enthusiastically in favor of the conversion.
Several people who responded to the SEC posting on the proposal said that the regulatory body had already approved future based ETs. It was only logical that a spot-based product receives the same. The US is at risk of falling behind countries like Canada which has approvals for investment products such as these, said some.
The point is that any spot-based fund would be backed by a physical asset unlike a futures contract from the CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange). Bitcoin ETSs currently operate from the CME. Grayscale’s BTC Trust has been trading at a hug discount in the last few months. Investors are still speculating and hedging that the ETF will get SEC approval. This means that BTC prices are currently at $44,600 and the discounted price is $32,500. The SEC has put off the decision to convert for a while longer. Concerns cited were liquidity, manipulation and transparency.
