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The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) won’t approve a spot Bitcoin ETF under current Chair Gary Gensler but a Republican victory at next year’s presidential election would usher in better times for the beleaguered crypto industry.
That’s according to former SEC enforcement lawyer John Reed Stark, who wrote in a post on social media platform X that applications for spot Bitcoin ETFs from the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, and Ark Invest will not be approved while Gensler’s at the SEC’s helm.
“The current SEC will not approve a bitcoin spot ETF application for a range of compelling reasons,’’ he said.
Those reasons include rampant manipulation and wash trading in the spot Bitcoin market, a concentration of trading among a small number of players s, and a reliance on a small group of people to maintain Bitcoin’s network, he said, citing research by Better Markets.
“Products that pose such clear threats to investors and fail to comply with the core requirements of the law must be rejected,” said Reed Stark, a former attorney in the SEC’s enforcement division for 15 years.
Will the SEC Approve Any Of The Recent Bitcoin Spot ETF Applications?
People often ask for my opinion on whether the SEC will approve any of the recent spate of bitcoin spot ETF applications, which is an interesting and important question.
My take is that the current SEC will… pic.twitter.com/lPXebl03Y4
— John Reed Stark (@JohnReedStark) August 13, 2023
Better News Ahead for Spot Bitcoin ETF Applications
Still, there may be better news ahead if a Republican becomes president. Should Donald Trump or another Republican candidate prevail in next year’s election, SEC Chair Gary Gensler would likely resign, Reed Stark said.
That would suggest that the senior Republican-appointed SEC commissioner Hester Peirce would probably become acting Chair, he said.
“Given her lengthy track record of dissent and opposition to most crypto-related SEC actions, the world should expect that most U.S. SEC crypto-related enforcement and most crypto-related SEC disruption would grind to a screeching halt,’’ he said. “The crypto-regulatory tides could shift exponentially after Election Day.’’
More broadly, Republicans appointed to the SEC would likely ‘’decrease significantly the SEC’s crypto-enforcement efforts,’’ be far more receptive to approving a Bitcoin spot ETF, and be far more likely to take other significant crypto-friendly regulatory actions, he said.
The November presidential election next year may be a rematch between incumbent Democratic President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump.
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