CBOE has withdrawn its application to list to Van Eck SolidX Bitcoin ETF on its exchange. According to a document that was published by the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday that they have indeed withdrawn their application to list physically backed bitcoin ETF.
CBOE is one of the homes of bitcoin futures contracts. CBOE chief came out and said that he sees the lack of traditional market-tracking index and futures contracts that most Wall Street investors use to hedge their bets as a limiting factor in the crypto market. Regulation is demanded by many companies and players before getting into crypto. He goes on to say that they have two regulators that are not taking calls right now, it doesn’t mean there is nothing they are interested in, it means that nothing is going to happen in this government shutdown.
Bitcoin Futures
Bitcoin futures contracts are not supremely popular actually. The CBOE only has 3475 contracts in open interest compared to 5038 back in January 2018. When we look at these versus the figures of CBOE’s volatility index of 370,000 contracts and bitcoin equals only 1% of the total trading activity compared to CBOE’s most traded product. This is something to keep in mind when we talk about futures contracts and how they are moving the markets back and forth.
Back late last year, we saw 9 different Bitcoin ETF being declined by the SEC including very high offerings from Gemini and SolidX. Regulators came out and said that there is a lack of control over the crypto markets and this has been the primary concern of the authorities in basically letting any of these applications go through but they are still trying. Even though the CBOE has removed their application to list a certain Bitcoin ETF, that is not the end of things by any means.
The Winklevoss twins from Gemini are still trying. Recently they said that they are committed as ever to making a Bitcoin ETF a reality. They said that bitcoin is a better asset than gold. They said that bitcoin is being better at being gold than gold and if they are right then over time the market cap of bitcoin will surpass the 7 trillion market cap of gold. The Winklevoss twins have been big believers in bitcoin for a long time.
Bitwise Bitcoin ETF:
Bitwise has submitted another Bitcoin ETF filing to the United States SEC. This is probably a terrible time to put the submission in as it could sit on the desk somewhere for months due to the government shutdown. Bitwise’s previous Bitcoin ETF filing was among those that were rejected by the SEC back in 2018.
The Global Research Cheif of Bitwise has said that the SEC has asked thoughtful and relevant questions of the quality of the crypto trading ecosystem, the liability of crypto pricing, the strength of the arbitrary function in crypto and the robustness of crypto custody. According to him, they have spent the past year researching these questions and look forward to discussing those findings with the SEC staff in connection with the filing and listing application. A key difference with their new filing versus their previous filing is that it uses a third party custody service. He also that while there can be no assurance that the 19B4 application will be granted or the SEC will ultimately accelerate the registration statement, they are optimistic that 2019 should be the year that a Bitcoin ETF launches.
Bakkt Exchange:
Bakkt is still not giving up on their bitcoin dreams by any means. They are going to be launching a cryptocurrency exchange, a payment processor and their futures contracts which may be approved by the CFTC which are just one small element. If Bakkt launches a Bitcoin ETF it may be approved by the SEC. A lot of what Bakkt wants to do needs approval and its really unfortunate that we are seeing this government shut down happening and it means that the approval is not forthcoming.
While all of this dysfunction continues, its actually a very great time to buy bitcoin at cheap prices because if tomorrow a Bitcoin ETF is approved that is going to affect the price of bitcoin to a great extent.
