Bloody Friday as the US SEC delays VENEck Bitcoin ETF

The “crypto winter” has progressed into an ice age as cryptocurrencies drown even further. Bitcoin price, for example, traded lows of $3,299.73 after sliding from the intraday high of $3,433.77. The asset is still in the red at the time of writing with declines of 2.1% on the day. The drop is not unique to Bitcoin as Ripple’s XRP and Ethereum (ETH) values are dwindling as well. XRP broke below the line in the sand at $0.3 to touch lows of $0.2924. Ethereum, on the other hand, is trading at $84 after retracting from the low traded at $82.15.

The entire crypto market is a sea of red rough waters as assets set new monthly lows. The ongoing crypto carnage is likely ignited and fueled by the news from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) following the postponement of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund proposal until 2019. The proposal, which is being delayed for the second time this year was sent by the fund manager VanEck in collaboration with a blockchain start referred to as SolidX.

The guidelines within the law state that the regulatory authority will not have the mandate to delay the ETF again. However, on the incoming deadline, the SEC will either have to approve or reject the proposal.

The current delay pokes in fresh wounds after the SEC had rejected several other BTC ETF proposals five months ago. In fact, in August the SEC rejected all 9 proposals from three companies ProShares, Granite Shares, and Direxion. Although the rejections were nullified the following day, it is still unclear when the regulator will rule on the proposals. CoinDesk reports that the VanEck is varied from the other proposals due to the fact that it relies on the value of BTC directly as opposed to Bitcoin futures.