The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been reluctant on approving a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), but according to Dr Zvi Gabbay, a partner and the head of the Capital Markets Department at the Barnea & Co. law firm, giants like BlackRock must have “right advisors” to guide them with their spot Bitcoin ETF application.
In the second part of our discussion with Dr Gabbay, an expert in financial regulation and enforcement, we learn about differing crypto approaches in the EU, whether crypto firms are still willing to do business in the US, the need for bridges between the crypto industry and traditional finance, also touching on political influence and the likelihood of approval for spot Bitcoin ETFs.
In contrast to the United States, the EU has taken a markedly different approach and is implementing the newly created Market in Crypto Asset (MiCA) framework for crypto regulation, something that Dr Gabbay was keen to praise: “[The EU] did things in the right order. The learning process in developing MiCA is very impressive, and when you look at the work they did, the research, the interviews, talking to market participants, understanding the pitfalls, understanding the challenges; I think that’s the right way to go about things. They’re very analytical.”
The EU brings #CryptoAssets, crypto-assets issuers and service providers under a regulatory framework.
🥇 Setting an EU level legal framework for this sector for the first time, @EUCouncil today adopted a regulation on markets in crypto-assets #MiCA.https://t.co/Yx4a5ETMI4 pic.twitter.com/4xvOWO9U91
— ESMA – EU Securities Markets Regulator 🇪🇺 (@ESMAComms) May 16, 2023
Meanwhile, it appears that crypto enterprises based outside the US are actively avoiding the US market.
“Other jurisdictions are developing their financial regulation [to include crypto], and in a way, the regulatory uncertainty that the SEC created is going to drive major crypto players away from the United States. Already it is, because if you can flourish as a legal, fully regulated business in Europe, but in the United States you’re risking litigation that will cost you millions and destroy your business, you won’t do that.”
And, as Dr Gabbay is engaged in private practice in this field, he was able to draw on his own experience about these issues. “We have a nice blockchain crypto practice and I don’t remember the last time a client who’s not in the United States already for some reason,…
