The SEC postpones a decision on VanEck's ETF, who cares anyway?

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) delayed the decision on the proposed launch of bitcoin-based ETF (exchange-traded fund) submitted by VanEck and SolidX. Also, the Commission asked the community to leave comments and help to make the right decision on the subject matter, according to the official document published on May 20. The new deadline for VanEck's proposal is August 19.

It is worth noting that VanEck and SolidX filed a joined application for Bitcoin-ETF at the end of 2018. The SEC was supposed to announce the verdict by February 27; however, it was postponed several times. Earlier this month the agency also delayed its decision on a bitcoin ETF proposal from Bitwise Asset Management.

A well-known lawyer in the cryptocurrency universe Jake Chervinsky believes that the favorable decision is highly improbable anyway. Moreover, he thinks that the SEC won't decide anything in August and shift the deadline once again.

"As expected, the SEC has delayed the VanEck bitcoin ETF proposal. VanEck's new deadline is August 19. The SEC can & likely will delay one more time for a final deadline of October 18," he wrote on Twitter.

Meanwhile, according to Andy Bromberg, co-founder of CoinList, bitcoin ETF has already become irrelevant. 

"I'm not sure the bitcoin ETF matters as much anymore. We're increasingly seeing that retail brokerages are going to offer bitcoin to their clients. Once you see that, once you see this widespread adoption, you don't necessarily need the ETF anymore," he said in the interview with Yahoo Finance on Monday before the SEC had announced the delay.