SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce Says Bitcoin ETF Should be a Reality by Now

Hester Pierce, the Republican SEC commissioner argued against the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) past decisions of denying permission for Bitcoin ETF. According to Pierce, bitcoin is a constantly and rapidly growing market that the SEC has underestimated for years. Now, with a rising and raging demand for Bitcoin ETF, it is made clear that SEC’s past explanations of crypto ETF rejections were mere excuses.

“I thought that if we had applied our standards as we have applied them to other products, we would already have approved one or more of them…With each passing day, the rationale that we have used in the past for not approving seems to grow weaker.”, Pierce told CNBC. 

The SEC Commissioner questioned SEC’s double standards referring to the lengthy, strict, and complex approval process of ETFs for digital assets, compared to minimal filtering of conventional bond or commodity ETFs. Shortly after Pierce predicted another delay or rejection from SEC, officials went public with statements confirming the initiation of a thorough inspection of the market to make the needful changes.

SEC Continues to Ignore Bitcoin ETF Despite its Proven Success in Other Countries

In previous years SEC backed their Bitcoin ETF rejection by saying the market was too remote to function in an ETF and that a market as small as bitcoin, would pose a threat of manipulation. This forced investors to shift to private players like Grayscale to trace bitcoin. However, Bitcoin reached a trillion-dollar market cap at the peak of the bull run and its institutional adoption has been growing despite regulatory uncertainty.

North American nations have already approved a number of Bitcoin ETFs, the most popular being the Purpose Group. The Bitcoin ETFs have proven to be a success as institutional investors’ demand for these products is at an all-time high.

Bitcoin’s weakness is also its strength, i.e., regardless of being a volatile digital currency, bitcoin volatility allows faster and larger gains. The passive nature of bitcoin ETF will allow a lower expense ratio that will lead to bigger profits in this ‘small market’.