- Asset manager Grayscale sent a letter to the SEC on Tuesday.
- The firm asked the regulator to meet to discuss a way forward following its win against the agency last week.
- The letter urged the market watchdog to urgently find a way forward to convert Grayscale’s futures Bitcoin ETF into a spot Bitcoin ETF.
Happy Hump day!
Grayscale won its courtroom clash with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last week. The asset manager wrote to the regulator on Tuesday, asking it to discuss a way forward to convert its Bitcoin Trust into an a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.
Let’s dig in.
Call me maybe?
The ball is in the SEC’s court after Grayscale sent a letter to the regulator earlier this week.
Grayscale’s lawyers said they would “appreciate the opportunity to meet” with the Commission “as soon as practical to discuss the way forward.”
The move came on the back of the asset manager winning its case against the SEC last week.
The D.C. court ruled in favour of Grayscale, and said the proposed conversion of GBTC to spot Bitcoin ETF is similar enough to Bitcoin futures ETFs to receive the same regulatory treatment.
However, GBTC will not automatically convert into an ETF on the back of the courtroom drama last week.
The firm’s CEO Michael Sonnenshein told reporters last week that he was “unsure” on what the next steps would be.
In the letter, the firm’s lawyers stressed that the situation requires urgency.
“Each day that passes without listing the Trust’s shares on NYSE Arca is another day when the Trust’s existing investors bear unjustified harm,” wrote Joseph Hall, an attorney at Davis Polk.
Grayscale’s lawyers also attempted to get ahead of any new reasons to deny its conversion.
If any other reason could be offered in attempting to differentiate spot Bitcoin ETFs from futures, “we are confident that it would have surfaced by now in one of the 15 Commission orders that rejected spot Bitcoin ETFs,” the letter read.
“We believe the Trust’s nearly one million investors deserve this fair playing field as quickly as possible,” the firm’s lawyers wrote, signing off and leaving their contact details for the Commissioners.
The Commission has 45 days to respond to the court’s decision. That means the Commission has until October 14, according to Craig Salm, chief legal officer at Grayscale, to respond.
Crypto market movers
- Bitcoin traded flat over the past 24 hours with relatively muted activity in crypto markets. The leading asset by market capitalisation continues to trade around $25,700.
- Ethereum was down 0.1% but continues to trade in a similar range just above $1,600.
