The two financial investment groups want to publicly trade the crypto funds
While they wait for a decision from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Grayscale Investments and VanEck asset managers have filed notifications with the regulator revealing they plan to register shares of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund onto public stock exchanges.
The VanEck Bitcoin Trust and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust made separate filings on January 4 with the SEC using Form 8-A to register the shares as securities to be listed on the Cboe BZX Exchange and New York Stock Exchange Arca, respectively. The filings are part of the registration process for an ETF with the SEC and come after the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund filed a similar registration on January 3.
The SEC currently has numerous spot BTC investment applications pending, with many expecting a decision on possible approval within a week. The speculation is that the SEC may approve multiple listings before the January 10 deadline for a spot BTC ETF offering from 21Shares and ARK Invest.
Form 8-A filings are an advancement in registering ETFs but don’t necessarily indicate that the SEC will approve listings. ETF analyst James Seyffart of Bloomberg expressed on X (formerly Twitter) that people should look for approvals with a 19B-4 Form and completed S-1 document.
The SEC has yet to authorize a spot BTC exchange-traded product to be listed and traded on US stock exchanges. Numerous asset managers, such as BlackRock, the biggest firm with about $9 trillion in assets under management, Bitwise, Fidelity, Invesco Galaxy, Valkyrie and WisdomTree, have pending applications for spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs with the SEC.
US crypto traders have had access to investment products tied to BTC futures since 2021 after the SEC approved the offering from ProShares. Canadian regulators authorized a spot Bitcoin ETF from Purpose Investments in 2021.
