Watchdog Group Warns SEC: Reject Spot Bitcoin ETFs or Face ‘Financial Carnage’

Financial watchdog group Better Markets has referred to as on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to reject spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), warning that they “will inflict massive investor harm.” The group options U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren’s testimonial on its web site. Its president, who’s reportedly near SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, warned the securities regulator that it “must not facilitate the financial carnage that will follow.”

SEC Must ‘Follow the Law and Reject’ Spot Bitcoin ETFs

On Friday, Better Markets filed a supplemental remark letter with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) detailing why the securities regulator ought to reject functions to launch spot bitcoin exchange-traded merchandise (ETPs), which embody bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Better Markets is a non-profit, non-partisan, impartial group primarily based in Washington, D.C. It is devoted to selling the general public curiosity in monetary reform, monetary markets, and the economic system. Its letter to the SEC on Friday referenced a number of spot bitcoin ETFs, together with these proposed by Blackrock, Vaneck, Ark Invest, Invesco, and Wisdomtree.

“The SEC must follow the law and reject spot bitcoin ETPs which will inflict massive investor harm,” Better Markets wrote. Dennis Kelleher, Better Markets’ cofounder, president, and CEO, issued an announcement Friday:

The approval of spot bitcoin ETPs can be a historic mistake virtually definitely resulting in huge investor hurt. The immense and unrelenting fraud and manipulation within the bitcoin market signifies that approving these merchandise would expose hundreds of thousands of American buyers and retirees to the very harms that the SEC exists to stop.

“The SEC must not facilitate the financial carnage that will follow if the crypto industry is allowed to repackage, add a veneer of legitimacy to, and widely disseminate a financial product that is little more than a socially worthless gambling chip,” he warned. “Denying the proposed rule changes is required under the law.”

Several folks on social media platform X rapidly identified the connection between Better Markets, the anti-crypto U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.

Warren is among the many prime testimonials featured on the Better Markets web site. “Dennis Kelleher and his team at Better Markets have consistently pushed for financial reform that will help protect the U.S. economy from another financial crash,” the anti-crypto senator wrote.

As for Gensler, Fox Business journalist Eleanor Terrett detailed in a prolonged put up on X Friday. “SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and the president and CEO of Better Markets Dennis Kelleher are tight (they served on Biden’s presidential transition team together) and Kelleher himself doesn’t like crypto AT ALL.” The Better Markets CEO beforehand stated crypto has “no legitimate or socially useful purpose,” noting: “It’s worse than a fantasy, it’s a fraud on the public.”

While many within the crypto group discovered Better Markets’ arguments unconvincing, others expressed considerations that Gensler may search a method to reject spot bitcoin ETF functions.

Do you suppose Better Markets will efficiently persuade the SEC to reject spot bitcoin ETF functions? Let us know within the feedback part under.