Although this is not approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund has been approved to list on the CBOE exchange, according to a new SEC filing.
Of course, this depends on whether the SEC grants Fidelity the authority to offer a spot Bitcoin ETF to investors. As of now, there is still a week left for the SEC to approve, deny or postpone a decision.
Bitcoin ETFs, which have been the white whale of the cryptocurrency market for the past decade, will give traditional investors exposure to Bitcoin without the need to purchase and store the digital asset directly. This means that investors can purchase Bitcoin without the hassle of learning more about cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets.
For this reason, analysts expect Wall Street cash to flow into cryptocurrencies once the ETF is approved. But the SEC hesitated. Over the past decade, Bitcoin ETF applicants have continued to be rejected by the SEC, primarily citing the potential for manipulation of cryptocurrency markets. But with TradFi heavyweights like Fidelity and BlackRock entering the fray, the calculus has changed.
After a final delay from the SEC, the regulator now has until January 10th to make a decision on pending Bitcoin ETF applications under consideration. But analysts who have been tracking ETF activity at Bloomberg Intelligence have narrowed the scope, predicting the SEC will make an announcement sometime between Jan. 8 and Jan. 10.
This is an optimistic sign at a time when the mere suggestion that a Bitcoin ETF application might be rejected has sent markets plummeting. As of this writing, Bitcoin has recovered slightly from the flash crash early Wednesday. According to CoinGecko, it is trading at $42,595.05, down 5.7% from this time yesterday.
Securities listing details will appear in the asset manager’s Form 8-A12B or in the Securities Listing Registration on the National Exchange form. The filing was filed with U.S. securities regulators on Wednesday afternoon, when many applicants were still awaiting word on the Bitcoin ETF’s registration.
The list maintained by the Depository Trust and Clearing Company (DTCC) contains tickers for all active and pre-launch exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Currently, the Fidelity Bitcoin ETF shows that it will trade on CBOE under CBOE’s FBTC ticker.
Having a stock listed on DTCC is not the same as SEC approval. The cryptocurrency industry learned this lesson last October when markets were shaken after the ticker for BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust was delisted. The merchants of the time considered this a bad omen. But analysts pointed out that this is not necessarily the case.
“My guess is they have been told to wait, or want to wait, for days rather than weeks or months.” said Eric Balchunas of Bloomberg at the time. “Like I said yesterday, it was amazing to see it there.”
As it turns out, the IBTC (now IBIT) ticker had been on the DTCC list for several months before the wider cryptocurrency community discovered it and panicked over its removal.
A DTCC spokesperson said: decryption An email at the time said the stock had been on the list since August. However, the stock’s inclusion “does not indicate the outcome of any outstanding regulatory or other approval process,” the company said.
Edited by Guillermo Jimenez.