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US Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler confirmed that the agency has eight to 10 applications for spot Bitcoin ETFs with different filing dates under consideration. Financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald said it is “increasingly confident” the SEC will approve them.
Kraken told some users that their data will be shared with the IRS, and Elon Musk told employees he plans to transform X into a financial centre. Read on!
Gensler confirms spot Bitcoin ETF reviews
SEC Chair Gary Gensler confirmed the agency has eight to 10 filings for spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in front of it for consideration, Reuters reported amid a Bitcoin rally.
Gensler added: “They’ll come potentially to the five-member commission. I’m not going to prejudge them but I don’t have anything on timing. … They all have various different filing dates.”
Bitcoin rallied last week amid speculation that SEC approval may be imminent, the report said.
Cantor ‘increasingly confident’ on Bitcoin ETFs
Revisions made to applications for spot Bitcoin ETFs have financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald “increasingly confident” that the SEC will approve them, Bloomberg reported.
Josh Siegler and Will Carlson, research analysts at Cantor, said the SEC is more likely to back the newly filed proposals as it had indicated that “a comprehensive surveillance-sharing agreement with a regulated market of significant size” would meet its criteria.
Surveillance provisions have been included in the refiled applications, the report said.
South Korea sees rise in crypto
South Korea is becoming a centre for crypto investment, with six million crypto investors, or about 10% of the country’s population, projected for next year, CryptoPotato reported, citing a survey.
According to the survey conducted by the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit, the country’s crypto investors will reach six million in the first half of 2024, with most using centralised exchanges.
Kraken says IRS getting user data
Crypto exchange Kraken will share user data with the US Internal Revenue Service in early November in compliance with a June court order, Decrypt reported.
The company will share information about US-based users who made crypto transactions of more than $20,000 between 2016 and 2020. Kraken has notified affected users by email, according to the report.
Musk envisions X as financial centre
Elon Musk, owner of X, said he plans to transform the social media platform into a financial centre for its users in 2024, adding that people will be surprised “just how powerful it is,” The Verge reported, citing an audio it obtained of an all-hands company call.
Musk was quoted as saying: “When I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life. … If it involves money. It’ll be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever. So, it’s not just like send $20 to my friend. I’m talking about, like, you won’t need a bank account.”
What we’re reading around the web
The Crypto Whistleblower at the Center of the Sam Bankman-Fried Storm — Rolling Stone
Crypto hackers are changing their tactics as 2023 heist haul plunges — DL News