US Securities and Exchange Commission Delays Decisions on Bitwise's Staking ETH ETF and Grayscale's XRP ETF

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has delayed its decision on Bitwise's application to add staking to its Ether ETF and on Grayscale's XRP ETF bid

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has predictably delayed its decision on Bitwise’s application to add staking to its Ether exchange-traded fund and on Grayscale’s XRP ETF bid, analysts noted.

On May 20, the SEC said it needed to extend its decision on Bitwise’s application by 45 days to “consider the proposed rule change and the issues raised therein.”

The agency needed to either decide or punt its decision on the application by May 22. But the agency is now able to defer a ruling on the application until June 15.

The agency also announced it was deferring a decision on Grayscale’s XRP (XRP) tracking ETF and Bitwise’s Solana (SOL) tracking fund as it seeks public comments and begins “proceedings to allow for additional analysis” of the proposals to ensure they meet regulatory standards.

“Both of these delays were EXPECTED as the SEC typically takes the full time to respond to a 19b-4 filing and almost all of these filings have final due dates in October and an early decision would be out of the norm. No matter how 'Crypto-friendly' this SEC is. There’s no conspiracy here,” Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart said on X.

Seyffart added that delays on other spot crypto ETF bids are also expected, and the SEC is likely to delay deciding on Litecoin (LTC) ETFs, which are also approaching their deadlines. However, Litecoin has a higher likelihood of being approved first.

“A bunch of XRP ETPs have dates in [the] next few days. If we’re gonna see early approvals from the SEC on any of these assets I wouldn’t expect to see them until late June or early July at the absolute earliest. More likely to be in early 4Q.”

Several other crypto ETF applications are approaching SEC deadlines in June. The SEC is supposed to decide on Grayscale’s Polkadot (DOT) tracking ETF by June 11 and 21Shares’ Polkadot ETF on June 24, according to an SEC filing.

Earlier this year, the SEC received a raft of altcoin ETF filings from various firms. These applications follow a series of legal victories for crypto firms against the SEC in the first quarter of 2024.

The industry saw Gensler’s time at the SEC as an era marked by an aggressive regulatory stance toward crypto, with 100 crypto-related regulatory actions during his tenure from 2021 until his resignation on Jan. 20.

However, with Genlser’s departure, the SEC is viewed as far more crypto-friendly, with several firms that faced legal action from the regulator having had their cases dismissed. For instance, crypto exchange Gemini had its case dismissed on Feb. 26, and crypto trading firm Cumberland DRW had its case dismissed on March 4.