Canadian Bitcoin ETF turns up heat on U.S. fund managers, regulators
Jeff Benjamin, 12 February 2021
Purpose Investments announced Friday morning that it has been cleared by Canadian securities regulators to launch Purpose Bitcoin ETF (BTCC), which is the first Bitcoin ETF in North America to gain regulatory approval, according to Bloomberg.
The new ETF is scheduled to start trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange next week and will be available to U.S. investors through brokerages that have access to the Canadian exchange.
There are a handful of other active filings awaiting regulatory approval in Canada, as well ETF filings before the Securities and Exchange Commission in the U.S. from VanEck and Bitwise Asset Management.
“Now that they’ve done it in Canada, it puts pressure on the SEC and money managers here because they don’t want to be behind,” said Chris Kuiper, vice president of equity research at CFRA.
“In the U.S., it’s still up to the SEC, and they want to see more transparency and to make sure that the market can’t be manipulated,” Kuiper said. “The market has to be big enough and liquid enough that you can’t have someone behind the scenes doing any hanky-panky to manipulate prices.”
