The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially approved the 19b-4 applications from various entities, including ARK 21Shares, Invesco Galaxy, VanEck, WisdomTree, Fidelity, Valkyrie, BlackRock, Grayscale, Bitwise, Hashdex, and Franklin Templeton. This approval includes rule changes allowing the listing and trading of spot Bitcoin ETFs on respective exchanges. Notably, an message initially appeared on the SEC website before the filing became live through an alternate link.
For a spot Bitcoin ETF to launch in the U.S., SEC approval is required for both the S-1 (or S-3) and 19b-4 forms submitted by the issuers. With these approvals, the industry eagerly awaits the commencement of trading for these ETFs.
In a related development, Senators J.D. Vance and Thom Tillis have sought SEC Chair Gary Gensler's report on a cybersecurity breach involving the SEC's X account. The incident raised "serious concerns" about the commission's internal cybersecurity procedures. The senators set a deadline for Gensler's report by January 23, emphasizing the mandate for businesses to disclose the impacts of a cybersecurity incident within four days.
The cybersecurity incident occurred on January 9 when the SEC's X account shared a false tweet suggesting the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. Gensler later disclosed that the SEC's X account was compromised, leading to the unauthorized tweet. An internal investigation revealed that the SEC account did not have two-factor authentication enabled at the time of the breach.
