The advent of a U.S.-based, fully-regulated Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) has long been a hope for crypto’s most fervent dreamers. Yet, these dreams, deemed quixotic by most, was quashed on Wednesday, as reports arose that the foremost cryptocurrency ETF application was withdrawn from the care of the (partially-defunct) U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).<\/p>\n
On Wednesday afternoon, the SEC released<\/a> one of the most important crypto-related documents to-date. The two-page document, authored by SEC deputy secretary Eduardo A. Aleman, revealed that the\u00a0Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) had withdrawn its proposed rule change that would have facilitated the listing of VanEck and SolidX’s collaborative Bitcoin ETF.<\/p>\n Therefore, the exchange, U.S.’ largest options market, effectively killed the proposal, which garnered mounds of support heading into 2018’s year-end. This document was filed on January 22nd, just earlier today.<\/p>\n Crypto’s analysts, industry commentators, and researchers quickly took to Twitter to touch on this unfortunate occurrence. Jake Chervinsky, a crypto-friendly attorney based in Washington, D.C., explained that the withdrawal “implies” that CBOE and its partners were already expecting an eventual denial.<\/p>\n CBOE has withdrawn the VanEck\/SolidX bitcoin ETF proposal (https:\/\/t.co\/812Ym7U7Hh<\/a>).<\/p>\n They haven't given a reason yet, but withdrawal implies that they expected denial & didn't want another SEC order setting bad precedent for the future.<\/p>\n There will be no bitcoin ETF in Q1 2019.<\/p>\n — Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) January 23, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n