Bitwise withdraws its Bitcoin ETF application

Asset management firm Bitwise, for now, has withdrawn its Bitcoin ETF application. According to a request to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday, Bitwise said the move to withdraw is “consistent with the public interest and protection of investors.”

Bitwise first filed its ETF proposal in January 2019. Since then, Bitwise has met the SEC several times and prepared a research paper on fake volumes/market manipulation and also a study on market maturation after their first publication on fake volumes.

Bitwise’s initial Bitcoin ETF proposal was rejected by the SEC in October 2019 to which Bitwise replied that the firm is “committed to creating a bitcoin ETF that provides all investors with the ability to access bitcoin in a regulated and familiar fund format”.

The firm is believed now to focus its efforts on answering the hard questions raised by the SEC to its initial filing.

Last year in Sept, CBOE exchange also withdrew their VanEck/SolidX Bitcoin ETF application just a month before the scheduled date for SEC to give their final decision. To date, SEC has rejected all Bitcoin ETF proposals, mainly because all proposals lacked an accurate mechanism for Bitcoin price discovery.