BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF application, the difference from the past | CoinDesk JAPAN | Coin Desk Japan

On the 15th, BlackRock, a major asset management company, filed an application with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the Bitcoin ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) “iShares Bitcoin Trust”, which is a “surveillance-sharing agreement” between exchanges. A “sharing agreement” may be more advantageous than other asset management companies’ applications.

Nasdaq (the ETF will be listed if the application is approved) filed with the SEC says it will enter into surveillance sharing agreements with operators of trading platforms to prevent market manipulation. .

Surveillance sharing agreements reduce the likelihood of market manipulation by sharing information about market transactions, clearings and customer identities.

Nasdaq’s proposed surveillance-sharing arrangement, the Spot BTC SSA, makes this application different from its predecessors, and it’s not just the size of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, that institutional investors have been wary of. Graeme Moore, Head of Tokenization at Poiymesh Association, a permissioned blockchain for cryptocurrencies, said.

“The SEC is very concerned about market manipulation related to the Bitcoin price, and has made this point in most, if not all, of its previous application denials. This is because it is not licensed as an exchange such as Coinbase, so it cannot be trusted to “prevent fraudulent and market manipulation activities.”

But Dave Weisberger, CEO and co-founder of CoinRoutes, counters that the surveillance-sharing agreement is redundant.

“Why do we need it? Kraken, Coinbase, ItBit, Lmax, Bitstamp – all these data feeds are public. We can see every trade on every order, and the SEC can say, ‘This looks like a manipulative trade, who did it?’”

The SEC has previously emphasized the importance of surveillance sharing agreements. In its January notice to Cboe Digital’s “ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF” filing, the SEC said that “exchanges listing bitcoin-based ETPs are subject to comprehensive oversight of the sizeable regulated market related to bitcoin assets.” “By presenting a sharing agreement, we can fulfill our trade law obligations.”

The SEC has approved a number of futures-based bitcoin ETFs, but has rejected bitcoin ETF applications from several asset managers, including Grayscale, VanEck, and WisdomTree. .

｜Translation: coindesk JAPAN
｜Editing: Takayuki Masuda
｜Image: Shutterstock
｜Original: BlackRock May Have Found Way to Get SEC Approval for Spot Bitcoin ETF