Cointime

Download App
iOS & Android

Grayscale met with SEC to discuss spot Bitcoin ETF details

Validated Individual Expert

Executives from crypto asset manager Grayscale have met with the Securities and Exchange Commission to discuss details of its flagship Bitcoin trust, which the firm wants to convert to a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

A Nov. 20 SEC memo disclosed Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein, legal chief Craig Salm, ETF head Dave LaValle and four other executives, along with five Davis Polk law firm representatives, met with the SEC’s division of trading and markets.

The memo said discussions “concerned NYSE Arca, Inc.’s proposed rule change to list and trade shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (BTC) under NYSE Arca Rule 8.201-E.”

Grayscale detailed that it had entered a Transfer Agency and Service Agreement with BNY Mellon, according to a filing shared by Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart.

The bank will act as the agent for its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), facilitating the issuance and redemption of shares and maintaining shareholder accounts.

In a Nov. 21 X (Twitter) post, Seyffart observed the trading and markets division is in charge of approving or denying 19b-4s — a form used to inform the SEC of a proposed rule change by a self-regulatory organization.

Seyffart added Grayscale’s agreement with BNY Mellon was “likely something that was always going to be required at some point” and isn’t an indicator that the GBTC will soon be converted.

In a Nov. 22 X post, ETF Store President Nate Geraci opined the “most substantive aspect of Grayscale’s SEC meeting yesterday is that GBTC ‘conversion’ is being referred to as an ‘uplisting.’”

“That doesn’t indicate any issues with conversion to ETF,” he said.

Grayscale has a real shot of dominating this ETF category if it can “uplist GBTC to NYSE Arca on the same day other issuers launch spot BTC ETFs,” and they make a concerted effort to compete on fees, Geraci added.

Geraci said Grayscale will enter the markets on day one with $20 billion in assets under management, even with BlackRock in the mix.

Related: US court issues mandate for Grayscale ruling, paving way for SEC to review spot Bitcoin ETF

Grayscale submitted an S-3 form registration statement with the SEC on Oct. 19, which showed its intention to list the shares of GBTC on the NYSE Arca under the ticker symbol GBTC.

In October, a U.S. appellate court issued a mandate for the SEC to review its decision to deny Grayscale’s bid to convert the GBTC to a spot ETF.

The firm is among other major asset managers, including BlackRock and Fidelity, seeking SEC approval for spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Seyffart maintained that “things are continuing to move forward” and his odds of approval — a 90% likelihood that an ETF is approved on or before Jan. 10, 2024 — remained the same.

ETF
Comments

All Comments

Recommended for you

  • Cointime's Evening Highlights for May 19th

    1.US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw net inflows of $948.3 million this week

  • This year, there have been more than 90 Bitcoin ecosystem-related financings

    There have been more than 90 financing transactions related to the Bitcoin ecosystem since 2024, setting a new record for the highest number of financing transactions in a single year in Bitcoin's history. Kyle Samani, Managing Partner at Multicoin Capital, pointed out that with the emergence of the Bitcoin Taproot upgrade and the Ordinals protocol, the Bitcoin ecosystem is experiencing a "developer renaissance". For some developers, building financial tools on Bitcoin is more attractive because it is the oldest and most secure blockchain. Multicoin Capital's investment trend is reportedly shifting from Solana to the Bitcoin ecosystem. The venture capital firm has invested in projects such as Solana Labs and StarkWare, but recently participated in the funding of the Bitcoin-native music platform Arch Network and the Bitcoin scaling network Mezo.

  • $1.911 billion worth of SOL transferred

    According to Whale Alert monitoring, 11,040,253 SOL (US $1,911,291,365) was transferred from an unknown wallet to another unknown wallet.

  • DeFi TVL exceeds $95 billion again

    According to defillama data, as of May 18, 2024, the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi has once again surpassed $95 billion. It is currently reported at $95.069 billion, an increase of nearly $12 billion from the low point of $83.04 billion 35 days ago. Among the top five protocols in terms of TVL, Eigenlayer has the highest 30-day increase, with TVL rising by 19.67% to a total of $15.455 billion.

  • Cointime's Evening Highlights for May 24th

    1. CryptoPunks Launches “Super Punk World” Digital Avatar Series

  • An address mistakenly transferred about $7,000 in BTC to Satoshi Nakamoto’s wallet

    According to Arkham monitoring, someone accidentally sent 90% of their BTC assets to Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet address last night. They were trying to swap Ordinal for PupsToken, but ended up sending almost their entire wallet balance - about $7,000 worth of BTC.

  • USDC circulation increased by 200 million in the past 7 days

    According to official data, within the 7 days ending on May 16th, Circle issued 1.8 billion USDC, redeemed 1.6 billion USDC, and the circulation increased by 200 million. The total circulation of USDC is 33.2 billion US dollars, and the reserve is 33.4 billion US dollars, of which 3.8 billion US dollars are in cash, and Circle Reserve Fund holds 29.6 billion US dollars.

  • Bitcoin mining company Phoenix Group released its Q1 financial report: net profit of US$66.2 million, a year-on-year increase of 166%

    Phoenix Group, a listed mining company and blockchain technology provider for Bitcoin, released its Q1 financial report, with the following main points:

  • Pudgy Penguins and Lotte strategically cooperate to expand into the Korean market, and the floor price rose by 3.1% on the 7th

    The NFT series "Pudgy Penguins" has recently announced a strategic partnership with South Korean retail and entertainment giant Lotte Group on the X platform to expand its market in South Korea and surrounding areas. More information will be announced in the future. According to CoinGecko data, the floor price of Pudgy Penguins is currently 11.8 ETH, with a 7-day increase of 3.1%.

  • Cointime May 12 News Express

    1.The number of Bittensor subnets for the AI ​​project will increase to 64, and 1024 subnets will be achieved this year2.Trader predicts Bitcoin price will reach $350,0003.vladilena.eth redeemed 1930 weETH from Zircult, suspected of selling4.Solana’s on-chain DEX transaction volume yesterday exceeded the sum of five chains including Ethereum, BSC, and Arbitrum5.RSS3 VSL locked-in amount surged in the past two days and is close to 200 million US dollars 6.The transaction volume of Club Key on friend.tech platform exceeded 1 million7.Lido has paid out more than 516,000 ETH in staking rewards, equivalent to approximately $1.51 billion8.1,000 BTC transferred from TronDAO to an unknown new wallet9.Report: Justin Sun deposited 120,000 eETH into Swell L2, worth $376 million10.1707.36 BTC have flowed out of Binance in the past 7 days