SEC Orders First Trust and SkyBridge to Declare ETF Application as Abandoned
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has instructed First Trust Advisors and SkyBridge Capital, the hedge fund led by former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, to mark their Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) application as abandoned.
The regulatory notice, released on Wednesday, stated that the registration statement needed to be declared abandoned due to the lack of response from the First Trust SkyBridge Bitcoin ETF to prior communications from the SEC.
Initially, First Trust and SkyBridge filed for a Bitcoin ETF in March 2021.
However, their application, like many others, was rejected in January 2022.
Surprisingly, the firms did not re-apply following the approval of BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF by the SEC, even after making some revisions to their application.
Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg, expressed uncertainty about why First Trust and SkyBridge chose not to re-file their application after the success of BlackRock’s ETF.
“FT was one of the filers who never jumped back in to the post-BLK race, not sure why,” he wrote in a post on X.
“Had they launched prob add 15% to the flows prob as First Trust is a sales MACHINE.”
Agree. The more I pondered it today the more I had same thought. Wonder what happened
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) March 13, 2024
In late January, ETF provider Global X also pulled its application for a spot Bitcoin ETF .
After facing resistance from the SEC in its initial attempt to launch a spot bitcoin ETF in 2021, Global X faced further delays upon refiling in Aug. 2023.
Global X missed the final list of potential ETFs due to documentation issues, but it’s not the only one that came up short. Pando Asset Management and 7RCC are also
Read more on cryptonews.com
