The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed the approval of the Winklevoss Twins Bitcoin Trust ETF once again, citing request for “public comments.”
Alternative ETF providers including SolidX LLC received similar statements from the SEC, and are being stalled for an indefinite time period.
To speed up the process, the Winklevoss Twins has partnered with multi-billion dollar financial services provider State Street Corporation, which is expected to serve as transfer agent while leading accounting firm Burr Pilger Mayer will operate as the auditor.
Currently, the ETF approval process of the SEC is overly complicated and inefficient, due to a set of policies that have been established without the consideration of ETFs and other exchange-traded assets. Thus, any ambiguity in the proposal of the Winklevoss Twins’ Bitcoin Trust ETF will most likely trigger additional delay.
According to the financial regulatory frameworks in the US, the SEC holds the right to delay the approval of ETFs as long as 240 days, which could be a financial risk considering the costs involved in the approval process and the possibility that the SEC could decline the ETF proposal after the delays.
The Winklevoss twins believe that their partnership with prominent financial services and auditing firms will establish a sense of trust between the SEC and the proposal, which would most likely help optimize the approval process.
The auditing firm, Burr Pilger Mayer, is contracted to conduct monthly “proof of control” operations, to ensure that the funds of the Winklevoss Twins Bitcoin Trust are in fact legitimate. The validation of the legitimacy of the funds will guarantee that the ETF itself is legitimate and properly structured.
Although it is still difficult speculate whether the Winklevoss Twins ETF could be approved by the end of 2016, the introduction of a formal and regulated bitcoin ETF is presumed to surge the bitcoin price to new highs.