When Bitcoin ETF? Not Any Time Soon, But Maybe by 2020

For the first time in more than a year, there are no active bitcoin exchange-traded fund proposals pending before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Money manager VanEck, financial services firm SolidX and Cboe BZX Exchange withdrew a highly-anticipated proposal Tuesday, citing an ongoing U.S. government shutdown as the reason.

The proposal, first filed last June, faced a final deadline of February 27 for approval or rejection.

Due to the shutdown, many legal experts anticipated that the SEC would reject the proposal outright rather than let it be approved by default.

The proposals, filed by ProShares, Direxion and GraniteShares, were rejected last year by the SEC staff, who cited concerns about bitcoin market manipulation.

While the SEC must stick to strict deadlines when initially examining a rule change proposal, there are no such deadlines for a review, attorney Jake Chervinsky told CoinDesk.

A decision on any of these nine proposals could happen as soon as the government re-opens, or it could drag on for months or even, theoretically, years.

It is possible that an ETF may still be approved by the end of the year, Chervinsky told CoinDesk via email, though he added that it "Will depend on when the ETF proposal is filed and the state of the bitcoin markets when the SEC makes its decision."

Once a proposal is filed, the SEC has 240 days to approve or deny it, should the regulator take every extension allowable under the law.

Any proposal filed by May 5, 2019 at the latest would require a final decision before December 31, Chervinsky explained.