VanEck, SolidX Make Case for Bitcoin ETF at Latest Meeting With US SEC
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has published a memorandum Nov. 28 of the latest meeting regarding a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded-fund (ETF) proposal. The application was originally brought to the commission by U.S. investment firm VanEck and blockchain software and financial services company SolidX. According to the memorandum, representatives from VanEck and SolidX, as well as from the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) met with members of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, Division of Trading and Markets, Division of Economic and Risk Analysis and Office of General Counsel Nov. 26. As previously reported, in June 2018, VanEck joined SolidX to apply for a physically-backed Bitcoin ETF to be listed on CBOE’s BZX Equities Exchange: its approval or disapproval is still pending since the SEC postponed its decision this August. At the center of the presentation’s argument was a comparison of Bitcoin as a commodity with more traditional assets — crude oil, silver and gold — all of which already have ETFs at market. In an analysis of price formation across traditional commodities alongside Bitcoin, the team argued that “[s]imilar to gold and silver, Bitcoin derives its value as a “money substitute” (unlike crude oil, which is a “pure industrial commodity”). The presentation emphasized that in all three traditional commodity futures markets, “empirical evidence” shows that “spot and futures prices are cointegrated,” indicating they “are tightly linked.” The same, as per the presentation, pertains to Bitcoin spot and futures, and this pattern — for all commodities at hand — is “evidence of a well-functioning capital market.”
