Kathleen Moriarty, partner at the law firm who helped to develop the very first Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), Arnold and Porter, says the SEC is still waiting on Bitcoin or cryptocurrency ETFs.
The first Bitcoin ETF attempt, submitted for approval by the Winklevoss twins in March of this year, was rejected by the Commission. However, new hope that Bitcoin ETFs may soon hit the market resurfaced when one of the lawyers from the firm representing the twins was named as a manager for the SEC department in charge of ETFs.
However, Moriarty’s comments at an ETF event in Washington DC, hosted by the SEC and New York University, have caused some concern that the hope was premature. At the event, Moriarty made it clear the at the SEC is still waiting for more stability from the Bitcoin marketplace before allowing a fully crypto ETF to be approved. She said:
“I didn’t see an outright, ‘Bitcoin, we hate it, we won’t do it. It was more, ‘it’s Bitcoin, it’s still a little funky, let’s wait.’”
There is some debate regarding whether a Bitcoin ETF is best for the cryptocurrency market. Asset holders see a new means of investment and institutional money input. Others see it as an introduction of counterparts risk into an asset where no such risks have existed.