Grayscale Continues Campaign to Spur SEC Into Action on Spot Bitcoin ETF

Grayscale, the world’s largest institutional crypto fund manager has launched a campaign to put pressure on U.S. regulators for the highly anticipated conversion of its BTC Trust into a spot-based exchange-traded fund.

Grayscale has launched a public campaign to encourage investors to add comments to their application with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The world’s largest digital asset manager is seeking approval to convert its popular BTC fund into a spot-based ETF but the financial regulator is still procrastinating.  

On Feb. 22 Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein tweeted the news that the quasi-online petition had gone live.

“Today Grayscale announced the launch of a new public campaign to encourage American investors to submit comments on our application with the SEC to convert $GBTC to a Spot Bitcoin ETF.”

Pressuring the SEC

The campaign aims to garner enough support from U.S. institutional investors and finance professionals to make the SEC finally take notice and approve a spot-based crypto fund.

As yet, the staunch regulator has only approved a handful of Bitcoin funds that are backed by futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), not the physical asset itself.

Sonnenshein explained that there is a standard 240-day review period during which the public is invited to submit comments to the SEC for consideration as part of the application process.

“This campaign aims to educate and inspire the investment community to take action and make their voices heard on this historic decision.”

A landing page has been created on the Grayscale website to direct investors and executives on how to submit their comments to the SEC. It suggested that interested parties email the SEC with their reasons as to why the regulator should approve the conversion. President of the ETFStore, Nate Geraci, commented:

“SEC about to be inundated w/ public comments in support of GBTC conversion to ETF… Grayscale has setup webpage to facilitate process. Gotta love it.”

Comments mounting up

As reported by BeInCrypto over the weekend, the comments were already mounting up with almost 200 responses recorded at the time. Grayscale has now made it official, encouraging that list to grow.  

One of the more recent comments on the official SEC application page pointed out the obvious:

“The SECs job is to protect investors. The currents rules are not achieving this goal. The Grayscale Bitcoin trust as it currently stands is an inferior investment vehicle than its conversion to a spot ETF would allow it to be. The futures ETF that was approved is much riskier for investors and reflects a double standard by the administration.”

Grayscale originally proposed the conversion of the world’s largest BTC fund into a spot ETF in October, however, the SEC delayed the decision as it has done with many others on Feb 4.