Bitcoin ETF: SEC Declares First Trust’s Application “Abandoned”

After several months of lying fallow, First Trust SkyBridge Bitcoin ETF has been declared “abandoned” by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Abandoned ETF Application

According to the screenshot shared by senior Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, on March 12, 2024, the U.S. SEC officially ordered that the registration statement for spot Bitcoin ETF of the duo First Trust and SkyBridge be declared as abandoned. The regulator confirmed that First Trust and SkyBridge had jointly filed a registration statement to register securities under Section 6(a) of the Securities Act of 1933.

Before the recent announcement from the U.S. regulator, the application had spent up to nine months on the SEC’s desk and was yet to become effective. First Trust SkyBridge was sent a notification informing them that the registration statement would be declared abandoned if no action is taken to either withdraw or amend the filing. Unfortunately, no response was received in this regard.

The lack of response or action from the asset managers prompted the decision of the SEC. It is worth noting that this is not the first time the duo would be applying to list spot Bitcoin ETF. In 2022, the SEC rejected the application as it did with others at the time. 

The rejection followed an initial interest to list an ETF on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2021. 

Spot Bitcoin ETF Breaking Major Milestones

Notably, the reasons for the lack of interest to continue the First Trust SkyBridge Bitcoin ETF application is not yet clear. 

Had the application joined the approved offerings in January, it might have benefitted from the outstanding results registered by a number of the spot Bitcoin ETF issuers including BlackRock that has kept drawing attention to the nascent ecosystem. 

As reported earlier, there was a robust total weekly net inflow of spot Bitcoin ETFs which stood at $2.23 billion.

BlackRock’s IBIT added Fidelity’s FBTC registered about $700 million in inflows on March 12. On its own, BlackRock’s IBIT surpassed MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin holdings with a net inflow of $2.07 billion in the week. Of all the ten spot Bitcoin ETFs, BlackRock has remained the leader with huge influx in its flows and trading volume.

Ultimately, the attention that spot Bitcoin ETFs are receiving has translated to a rally in the price of Bitcoin as the cryptocurrency hit a new all-time-high (ATH) above $72,000.