As promised, the CBOE has resubmitted its joint application with VanEck and SolidX to the United States financial watchdog the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The decision barely comes a week after withdrawing its initial application for a proposed rule change whose approval would have allowed the listing of a Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF).
As previously reported, the reason why CBOE withdrew the application was to avoid an imminent rejection following the partial US government shutdown that had lasted a little over a month with no conclusion in sight at the time.
The initial application was fast approaching its Feb 27th deadline for a determination and without enough time to review the application, the SEC was most likely to reject the application. A rejection of the application would have introduced new complications to the review process which forced the CBOE and its partners in the venture to resort to withdrawing it.
VanEck CEO Jan van Eck, assured the public that once the government shutdown had been resolved and the SEC was back in office, the partners would again reapply, a promise to which they have adhered.
According to a recent announcement by VanEck digital asset strategy lead Gabor Gurbacs on the Twitter platform, the proposed rule change application is back on the table for further discussion. According to the filing, it’s dated 30th January 2019 which means that it had been filed a day before they made the announcement.
However, the SEC has not listed the application with the Federal Registrar which means until the application is published with the Registrar, the SEC is not under any timeline. Once the application is published, the SEC will have a maximum of 240 days to either approve or reject the proposal.
The CBOE’s reapplication comes only weeks after a similar rule change was proposed by NYSE Arca in conjunction with Bitwise Asset Management to the SEC. Similarly, NYSE Arca’s application has not been published in the Federal Registrar which also means that its countdown is also yet to start.
Bitcoin ETF proponents believe that once the product has been approved, it will usher in an influx of institutional investor money that will boost the crypto space, possibly getting it out of the bear’s claws and also increasing liquidity within the space.
