As if the egg on his face weren’t enough, Gary Gensler also has sour grapes. An hour after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the agency he leads, approved just under a dozen spot bitcoin ETFs, Gensler issued a statement making absolutely clear the move is absolutely not an endorsement of bitcoin [BTC].
This is an excerpt from The Node newsletter, a daily roundup of the most pivotal crypto news on CoinDesk and beyond. You can subscribe to get the full newsletter here.
“Investors should remain cautious about the myriad risks associated with bitcoin and products whose value is tied to crypto,” is how he chose to end his personal statement. This is nothing new for the top securities cop in the U.S. Gensler has said time and again that cryptocurrencies have failed to demonstrate societal value.
Nevermind that BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, reignited interest in bitcoin last year, during the depths of the bear market, when it applied to list a spotbitcoin exchangetraded fund (ETF) based on the obvious consumer demand for such a product. Soon after, the SEC was fielding at least 12 other ETF applications, and BTC’s price was rallying.
Perhaps worse for Gensler, the demand is real: BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) is on track to notch a historic $3 billion in capital inflows on its first day of trading, to say nothing of its competitors. The sheer number of thematic crypto funds launched this week is also unprecedented, showing the high level of interest by financial service providers.
As Georgetown professor James Angel told CoinDesk over email, the SEC, by denying them for so long, may itself have had a hand in stirring demand for bitcoin ETFs. Gensler noted, until Wednesday, the agency had denied at least 20 such applications, which indirectly acted as free marketing.
In his letter, Gensler suggests he likely would have preferred that the current cast of bitcoin ETFs didn’t come to market at all. But his hand was forced after an appeals court in Washington D.C. reprimanded his agency’s “arbitrary and capricious” logic for denying Grayscale’s plans to convert the GBTC trust into an ETF.
See also: Bitcoin ETFs Approved: The Industry Reacts
Gensler doesn’t sound particularly gracious when telling the story, saying that only after the…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Cryptocurrencies Feed…
