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The Securities and Exchange Commission delayed a decision on approving the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund, the regulator announced Thursday.
This is the second time the SEC has delayed a decision on ETF provider VanEck’s proposed bitcoin product since April, when it said it needed more time to evaluate the proposal. On Wednesday, the regulator delayed its decision again, this time asking for more comments on whether it should allow the product to trade on public markets.
The SEC seeks to understand whether the proposed ETF would be susceptible to manipulation and whether any single market participant would have “the ability to buy or sell large amounts of bitcoin without significant market impact,” it said in its announcement.
The SEC has received roughly a dozen bitcoin ETF proposals over the past eight years, but has not approved any due to concerns over investor protection. In recent months, the regulator also delayed decisions on Kryptoin’s and WisdomTree’s
WETF,
proposed ETFs.
The price of bitcoin
BTCUSD,
fell following the announcement, trading roughly 4.3% lower Wednesday.
