No Green Light for Bitcoin ETFs Anytime Soon: Godfather of ETFs

By Swati Kishore

Reggie Brown from the firm Cantor Fitzgerald has stated that BTC Exchange-Traded Funds will not be certified any time soon. Cantor Fitzgerald was founded in 1945 and the firm primarily focuses on fixed income sales, trading, and institutional equity. The firm has as much as 5000 clients from fields such as prime brokerage, real estate, and investment banking. Brown is the senior managing director and the head of ETF trading at the firm, he is also famously known as the ‘Godfather of ETFs’.

Brown spoke at length at the Georgetown University’s Financial Markets Quality Conference, Washington D.C., where he elaborated on the fact that BTC ETFs will come in place only post the development of a robust regulatory framework in the cryptocurrency industry. Browne was quoted as saying:

“It’s very difficult for the Securities and Exchange Commission to wrap their heads around a positive approval because there’s no data yet … the markets just aren’t here.”

Seconding Brown’s thoughts about the fate of Bitcoin ETFs is Larry Fink, CEO of the investment management corporation BlackRock. Speaking at the New York Times Dealbook Conference in Manhattan, Fink commented on the state of Bitcoin ETFs. He went on to add that ETFs need to be backed by the government, and this can only be achieved if the government has clarity on whether these instruments are legal and not used for an illicit activities. Hence, getting a go ahead on the same seems a far fetched imagination.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has rejected as much as nine applications in the August of this year from companies like Direxion, GraniteShares, and ProShares.The CEO of Abra Bill Barhydt, the crypto payments startup, also suggested that the slew of rejections on the BTC ETF applications by the Securities and Exchange Commission is owing to the fact that the crypto industry does not fit the mold of the applicants that the SEC is used to.