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- The SEC has failed to approve a cryptocurrency ETF for years now, and according to the regulator’s very own Hester Peirce, this is a double standard.
- Hester, known as Crypto Mom, believes that the crypto market has matured enough in the past decade to warrant better treatment from the SEC.
Five years ago, the U.S Security and Exchange Commission’s excuse while denying a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) was that the industry was rife with manipulation and it wasn’t mature enough. However, as it stands, this is no longer a valid excuse, at least not to SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce. She believes that the SEC is applying a double standard on crypto, and this is unfair.
Peirce is one of the most beloved figures in the crypto community globally. While the SEC has long seemed not to be the biggest crypto fan, she has been tireless in her advocacy for the industry. This has seen her call out the SEC, and some of her fellow heads, when they go against crypto, usually meritlessly.
And in her most recent interview, she has done it again.
“That is probably the biggest, the most often-asked question that I get: When will the SEC approve a bitcoin exchange-traded product?” Peirce, who has come to be referred to as Crypto Mom, told CNBC in an interview.
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.
Crypto Mom: SEC should have approved a Bitcoin ETF
This is not the first time Crypto Mom has spoken out against the SEC for failing to approve a Bitcoin ETF. Last year, she took a dig at the Commission, saying that it was asking crypto companies for more than it does other financial companies.
In 2018, she had strongly argued the case for a crypto ETF as well. “Bitcoin is a new phenomenon, and its long-term viability is uncertain. It may succeed; it may fail. The Commission, however, is not well-positioned to assess the likelihood of either outcome, for bitcoin or any other asset,” she stated at the time.
Not much has changed since then – she is still arguing the case for a crypto ETF, and the SEC is still turning down ETF applications, with the latest being by VanEck.
Related: Ark Invest partners 21Shares to file for Bitcoin ETF
Failure to approve the ETF will only lead the investors to put their money in its substitutes, and this could hurt them, Crypto Mom believes.
The complications of not approving [an ETF]become stronger because people are looking for other ways to do the same kinds of things that they would do with an exchange-traded product. They’re looking at other types of products that aren’t as easy to get in and out of, they’re looking at companies, perhaps, that are somehow connected with bitcoin or crypto more broadly.
