Bitcoin ETF expected for Wednesday—but some fret about being ‘rugged’ by SEC

Bitcoin ETF expected for Wednesday—but some fret about being ‘rugged’ by SEC
Bitcoin ETF expected for Wednesday—but some fret about being ‘rugged’ by SECSo much drama. On Friday, the crypto world was abuzz about an unfounded rumor that the Securities and Exchange Commission chose that day to approve long-awaited Bitcoin ETFs. That didn't happen, so the buzz shifted to what did: the filing of an 11-page letter by an outfit called Better Markets, which has ties to anti-crypto scourge Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as well as SEC Chair Gary Gensler. The letter warned the SEC that it would be a "grave if not historic mistake" to approve Bitcoin ETFs, and that doing so would put a U.S. stamp of approval on "a market thoroughly contaminated with fraud and manipulation."

The letter's 11th-hour filing—only days before the SEC is obliged to take a vote on a pending Bitcoin ETF petition—and the fact it came from allies of Gensler and Warren led some crypto watchers to fear the approval process would be derailed yet again. "It'd be so utterly fitting for crypto in general if Gary manages to figure out a way to rug everyone," Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart noted dryly. (The term "rug" is common crypto parlance for pulling a sudden trick or scam).

Despite a flurry of worried tweets about the letter, it's unlikely the Better Markets missive is part of a last-minute plot to help the crypto-hating Gensler sandbag the Bitcoin ETF applications one more time. This is not least because the group's letter, on closer inspection, appears to be little more than a rewarmed version of an earlier document from this summer. The evidence for this is that the group's initial filing contained the wrong date and that Better Markets did not even bother to provide an up-to-date list of companies seeking a Bitcoin imageETF.image