The legal team at Davis Polk has submitted a response letter to GBTC’s upcoming 19b-4 filing as Grayscale Investments waits for a ruling from the DC Circuit in their litigation to convert GBTC to a spot bitcoin ETF. This also contains seven additional spot bitcoin ETF applications with recently announced surveillance sharing agreements (SSAs).
Grayscale’s justification for the SEC’s decision to approve all spot bitcoin ETF applications is summarised in the comment letter that was just submitted. The business is nonetheless excited by the growing buzz surrounding these filings, which highlights the ongoing development of the bitcoin spot market and supports the idea that American investors ought to have access to spot bitcoin ETFs in the US.
Given its prior approval of bitcoin futures ETFs, Grayscale contends that the SEC is already in a position to approve spot bitcoin ETFs. The CME bitcoin futures market should be sufficiently monitored to guard against any fraud or manipulation in the underlying spot bitcoin market, according to independent studies that demonstrate a 99% correlation between the spot and futures markets for the cryptocurrency.
Grayscale continues to support initiatives that give investors access to the cryptocurrency ecosystem, even though it does not see the launch of an SSA with a spot bitcoin market as the only way to get spot bitcoin ETFs approved in the US. Grayscale pledges to take the necessary steps to convert GBTC into an ETF and welcomes developments that increase regulation of centralised cryptocurrency markets.
Grayscale stresses that the SEC’s decisions regarding bitcoin ETFs should be made in a just and systematic way. The SEC should give issuers feedback or direction consistently, fairly, and without favouring certain issuers over others as a disclosure-based regulator.
All spot bitcoin ETF applications should be accepted at once, according to Grayscale, to the advantage of investors, the market, and bitcoin. With this strategy, American investors are safeguarded and given access to a variety of bitcoin investment instruments.
The conversion of GBTC to an ETF, according to Grayscale, will restore billions of dollars in value to the almost one million investors who possess it across all 50 states. The company will continue to fight for the approval of spot bitcoin ETF applications, highlighting the fact that GBTC investors shouldn’t be denied access to the spot bitcoin ETF they are due.
Grayscale utilises the word “ETF” to refer to exchange-traded investment vehicles, including those that must be registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940 (the “’40 Act”) as well as other exchange-traded products that are not required to register.