SEC decision on Bitcoin ETFs won’t leave out Wall Street giants
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) delay in deciding whether to approve a spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States is fueling expectations that a final verdict will come in a batch that includes key players on Wall Street, including BlackRock and Fidelity.
“There’s a tremendous amount of pressure on the SEC to approve a number of these ETFs, particularly because the approved Futures backed products are lagging spot performance substantially, harming investors,” markets veteran and co-founder of CoinRoutes Dave Weisberger told Cointelegraph, adding that all pending applications will likely be included in a final decision.
The SEC is analyzing a total of eight applications for a spot Bitcoin ETF, following past delays and denials of the crypto product in recent years. Companies up for a decision are Ark and 21Shares, Bitwise, BlackRock, VanEck, WisdomTree, Invesco and Galaxy Digital, Fidelity, and Valkyrie. Together, the firms manage over $15 trillion in global assets.
On Aug. 11, the U.S. markets regulator opened a 21-day comment period for the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF. As per the filing, the SEC is seeking answers on whether ARK 21Shares’ proposal is designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices, as well as whether the Bitcoin market is susceptible to manipulation.
Furthermore, the regulator raised concerns about Coinbase’s surveillance-sharing agreement, asking commenters to examine whether Coinbase’s participation in the ETFs surveillance would, in fact, help to detect, investigate, and deter fraud and manipulation in Bitcoin’s price.
“The SEC’s main concern about spot crypto ETFs is about the potential market manipulation by a big whale. Theoretically, it can happen if the SEC approves the ETFs of one or two investment funds. But if it decides to register all 8 ETFs, it will sharply mitigate the probability of manipulation, because these firms will be able to trade with each other frequently, taking opposite sides,” explained Ruslan Lienkha, chief of markets at YouHodler.
The delay had a lower impact on Bitcoin’s price, hovering around the $30,000-mark at the time of writing. According to Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, co-founder of crypto lending platform Ledn, traders and investors are “expecting them [the SEC] to take all the time they could,” with today’s decision having a low impact “in terms of market expectations.”
The SEC still has two deadlines before a final decision is made. The third deadline for ARK 21Shares application is due by January 202. Valkyrie has the latest application in line, with two upcoming deadlines in January and March next year.
The BTC ETF outcome could reshape the crypto investment landscape. According to Lienkha, an approval could potentially bring over $70 billion in liquidity to the Bitcoin market. “The opportunity to invest in Bitcoin through ETFs will give regular investors more confidence, as with professional help, they don’t have to dive into all the technical details and analyze potential risks by themselves,” he noted.
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Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov said that French intelligence pressured Telegram into censoring political content, which he refused to do.
Reform’s immigration policy is “racist”, Sir Keir Starmer has said.
He was reacting after Nigel Farage‘s party said it would axe the right of migrants to apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR), ban anyone who is not a UK citizen from claiming benefits, and force those applying for UK citizenship to renounce other citizenship.
This policy could impact hundreds of thousands of people, although Reform has exempted EU citizens with settled status from its plans to ban migrant access to benefits and its policies on ILR.
Indefinite leave to remain is the status which grants legal migrants the ability to settle in the UK without the need to renew a visa every few years.
Labour conference in Liverpool – follow live updates
Speaking to the BBC, the prime minister and Labour leader said: “Well, I do think that it is a racist policy. I do think it is immoral. It needs to be called out for what it is.”
But he did not condemn those supporting Reform UK.
Sir Keir added: “No, I think there are plenty of people who either vote Reform or are thinking of voting Reform who are frustrated.
“They had 14 years of failure under the Conservatives, they want us to change things.
“They may have voted Labour a year ago, and they want the change to come more quickly. I actually do understand that.”
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Can Reform scrap common migration path?
He had said previously: “It is one thing to say we’re going to remove illegal migrants, people who have no right to be here. I’m up for that.
“It is a completely different thing to say we are going to reach in to people who are lawfully here and start removing them. They are our neighbours.
“They’re people who work in our economy. They are part of who we are. It will rip this country apart.”
Labour has proposed its own changes to indefinite leave to remain, although it does not appear to be retrospective like Reform’s.
Read more:
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PM mounts fightback against Reform
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‘I’m proud of the job Starmer’s doing’
Responding to the prime minister on social media, Reform’s head of policy Zia Yusuf said “Labour’s new message to the British electorate just dropped:
“‘Pay hundreds of billions for foreign nationals to live off the state forever, or we’ll call you racist!'”
Polling released at the start of the Labour conference by Survation shows that 65% of party members think Labour is going in the wrong direction, 64% think Sir Keir has done badly since taking office and 53% think the party should change leader before the next general election.
A poll suggests over half of Labour members want Sir Keir to exit before the next election. Pic: Reuters
Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News, Housing Secretary Steve Reed defended his government’s record.
He claimed wages went up faster in 10 months under Labour compared to 10 years under the Conservatives.
But he claimed it “takes time” for improvements to really be felt by the public, “so we have to stay on course and not divert on the basis of one poll or another”.
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Mr Reed said that the “revolving door” of Tory leaders was one of the reasons for Labour’s tricky inheritance – and he was “absolutely” sure Sir Keir should lead the party into the next general election.
The minister went on to brand Mr Farage a “plastic” patriot after the Reform UK leader “begged” the US Congress to put sanctions on British workers.
Politics
More than half of Labour members do not want Starmer to lead party into next general election – poll
More than half of Labour members do not want Sir Keir Starmer to fight the next general election as party leader, a new poll has revealed.
The Survation survey for LabourList, shared with Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, showed 53% of the party membership want a new leader by the time of the next election, while only 31% want Sir Keir to remain in post until then.
The findings lay bare the scale of the challenge facing the prime minister as he heads to Liverpool for the Labour Party conference.
He arrives at the gathering just days after a separate poll showed Reform leader Nigel Farage had a clear path to Number 10, and after Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham appeared to set out his own bid for the Labour leadership in a series of interviews in which he claimed Labour MPs had privately urged him to return to Westminster.
In a direct criticism of Sir Keir, Mr Burnham – who previously ran for the Labour leadership in 2010 and 2015 – said Number 10 had created a “climate of fear” among MPs and created “alienation and demoralisation” within the party.
And in an apparent rebuke of the government’s policies and priorities so far, Mr Burnham set out an alternative vision to “turn the country around”, including higher council tax on expensive homes in London and the South East and for greater public control of energy, water and rail.
It follows a turbulent few weeks in which the prime minister has lost several close appointments: Angela Rayner as deputy prime minister, Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, Paul Ovenden as his director of political strategy and most recently Steph Driver, his director of communications.
The LabourList poll, which surveyed 1,254 Labour members between 23 and 25 September, also showed Labour members were unhappy with the general direction of the government, with 65% saying Sir Keir was heading in the wrong direction, compared with 26% who said he was getting it right.
More than 60% said he had governed badly, compared with 35% who had said he had done a good job.
The results will add to further grim reading for Labour after a mega poll conducted by YouGov for Sky News showed that Mr Farage is on course to be the next prime minister.
The YouGov MRP polling projection, based on a 13,000 sample taken over the last three weeks, suggested an election held tomorrow would see a hung parliament with Reform UK winning 311 of the 650 seats – 15 seats short of the formal winning line of 326.
The projection of Commons seats in Great Britain puts Reform UK on 311 seats, Labour on 144 seats, Liberal Democrats on 78 seats, Conservatives on 45 seats, SNP on 37 seats and Greens on seven seats, with Plaid on six seats and three seats won by left-wing challengers.
Northern Ireland constituencies are excluded.
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YouGov: Farage set to be next PM
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The result would see Labour lose around two-thirds of their existing seats, down from the 411 they won in last year’s general election.
It would also represent the worst result for the party since 1931 and would mark a further decline on the party’s performance under Jeremy Corbyn in 2019, when the party won 202 seats.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir’s approval rating has hit a historic low. Just 13% of the public approves of the job he is doing as PM, according to a new Ipsos poll, while 79% is dissatisfied – giving him a net approval rating of -66.
That is worse than the previous record the pollster has recorded of -59, held by both Rishi Sunak in April 2024, and Sir John Major in August 1994.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham. Pic : PA
The Labour Party doesn’t fare much better, with just 22% of the public saying they would vote for it if a general election were held today, while 34% would vote for Reform UK.
But Sir Keir has insisted that he can “pull things around”, telling The Sunday Times: “It is the fight of our times and we’ve all got to be in it together. We don’t have time for introspection, we don’t have time for navel-gazing.
“You’ll always get a bit of that at a Labour Party conference, but that is not going to solve the problems that face this country.
“Once you appreciate the change – in the sense of the division that Reform would bring to our country and the shattering of what we are as a patriotic country – then you realise this is a fight which in the end is bigger than the Labour Party.”
Sir Keir has previously warned that the next election will be an “open fight” between Labour and Reform UK.
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