WisdomTree Reapplies to U.S. SEC For Bitcoin ETF

Almost nine months after its last application was rejected, investment asset management company WisdomTree has filed for Bitcoin (BTC) Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

According to the proposal, the WisdomTree BTC Trust would be listed on Cboe BZX Exchange under the ticker BTCW. Listing of such ETFs allows institutional clients to be exposed to the value of Bitcoin without directly investing in the leading cryptocurrency.

BlackRock Succeeds WisdomTree in Spot BTC ETF Application

Principally, this filing comes less than a week after BlackRock submitted a similar application. In conjunction with American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, BlackRock filed an application for a spot BTC ETF last Saturday. 

Although a decision is yet to be gotten from the SEC, the asset manager with up to $9.5 trillion in assets under management (AUM) plans to leverage Coinbase Custody for the ETF and its spot market data for pricing.

BNY Mellon is billed to act as the cash custodian in the alliance.

Renewal of Hope in SEC ETF Approval

It looks like BlackRock’s application has restored some hope of approval. Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart, ETF analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence likened this possibility to the size, stature and reputation of the company. In addition, Dave Abner, principal at Dabner Capital Partners, an ETF and crypto advisory firm, believes that the SEC may be getting a high influx of applications soon.

“Everyone who had a filing is going to resubmit and those who had been considering will also want to be filing soon as well,” he said.

So far, the U.S. regulator has not approved any of such spot ETFs. Grayscale is still in court fighting the rejection of its application. Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust Spot ETF application was also turned down by the SEC last year.

Crypto Interest Heightens Following SEC Lawsuits

At the same time, there has been a heightened interest in the crypto industry after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hit Coinbase and Binance with enforcement actions for several charges including listing unregistered securities.

Leading financial service provider Deutsche Bank applied for a digital asset custody license in Germany yesterday. Crypto exchange EDX Markets, backed by financial heavyweights Charles Schwab (SCHW), Citadel Securities and Fidelity Digital Assets, began operations and has started offering trading with BTC and Ethereum (ETH).