In another blow to the crypto sector as a whole, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has once again disapproved of several proposals that had outlined the creation of novel bitcoin ETFs.
As per a story on CNBC, two of the new ETF proposals filed by ProShares were designed particularly to track bitcoin futures contracts. Similarly, two other similar proposals were submitted by GraniteShares, while five more ‘leveraged and inverse ETFs’ were pushed forth by Direxion.
It is also worth mentioning that all of these rejections have come nearly a month after the SEC denied the Winklevoss twins’ application for the creation of an ETF that would have allowed investors to trade physical bitcoin.
The Reasons Laid Out by the SEC
Upon inspection, the reasons delivered by the SEC for the aforementioned rejections seem to be quite similar to the ones handed out to the Winklevosses some time back.
For starters, the government body once again alluded to fears related to “fraud and manipulation of bitcoin markets”. Not only that, in relation to the Proshares Application, the SEC said that the filing was unsatisfactory and did not meet regulatory requirements that had been established by the body.
It then went on to add:
“A national securities exchange’s rules must be designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices. Among other things, the Exchange has offered no record evidence to demonstrate that bitcoin futures markets are ‘markets of significant size.”
