Gary Gensler, chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), says the approval of spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) this week does not affect the potential green light for other crypto-financial products.
In a new interview on CNBCHost Andrew Ross Sorkin asks Gensler whether a recent court ruling that spurred the adoption of Bitcoin ETFs would set a precedent for the future blessing of an Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded fund.
However, the SEC chairman has chosen not to provide an opinion on the likelihood of an ETH ETF approval.
“I look at what we’ve done this week when it comes to a non-security item called Bitcoin, as if we’ve had exchange-traded gold products and exchange-traded silver products in the past, and approved in the past, this is cabin just to that one non-safety goods token.”
But Gensler did argue that the majority of digital assets are securities.
“[The crypto sector is] It is full of conflict, fraud and abuse. Without getting ahead of any one token, many of these tokens, and I think the majority of these tokens, are actually securities under the securities laws. And so the platforms, the different places where you can buy or sell these crypto security tokens, have to comply with federal law.”
The SEC approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs on Wednesday, after years of rejecting applications. The regulator gave the green light for Bitcoin futures ETFs in 2021.
In August, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the SEC behaved “arbitrarily and capriciously” when it denied Grayscale’s application to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a spot ETF. Gensler cited the ruling as a critical factor in the approval of the current round of spot Bitcoin ETF applications.
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