The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on May 13 that it has once again postponed its decision on multiple applications for cryptocurrency-related exchange-traded funds (ETFs), including those submitted by Grayscale and Blackrock. This delay further prolonged the review time of the SEC, and the market expects that there will be no approval result before the last quarter of 2025.
Grayscale’s application for spot ETFs targeting Solana (SOL) and Litecoin (LTC) has been postponed. The new submission deadlines for these two projects are August 11th and October 10th respectively. Furthermore, the SEC has also postponed the action of making in-kind redemptions requests for BlackRock’s approved spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs. Blackrock’s request currently has no deadline for renewal. The request mainly focuses on technical mechanisms rather than the initial approval issue.
Meanwhile, the SEC confirmed that it had received the 19b-4 document of the spot DOGE ETF submitted by 21shares and officially initiated the official review process of the product. This filing marks the beginning of the countdown to the final decision in accordance with the SEC’s legal schedule.
A decision is expected to be made later this year
This latest move by the SEC continues its interlaced review model for over 70 crypto ETF proposals, which are currently at different evaluation stages. On April 29th, the SEC had postponed its decisions on five other crypto-related ETFs.
Bloomberg ETF analysts James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas believe that the current delay is a routine operation. Seffat said that this delay was expected and that the final deadlines for most of the affected products would be as early as October at the earliest. Barchunas added that the SEC is unlikely to give substantive approval until the recently confirmed SEC Chair Paul Atkins completes internal meetings and strategic discussions with staff. He pointed out: “They have been meeting with outsiders and may be formulating strategies. There may be approval actions later.”
Regulatory roadmap
The SEC’s decision on applications for crypto ETFs follows a multi-stage statutory process based on the publication of proposed rule changes in the Federal Register. The usual review intervals of this institution are 45 days, 90 days, 180 days and 240 days, which provides it with the opportunity to delay decisions multiple times before the final deadline. The recent actions of the regulatory agency are consistent with its historical practice of extending the review to the legal maximum time limit before making a decision.
Among this batch of ETF applications, none will face a final deadline before the end of the third quarter, leaving applicants and investors still waiting for further clear information on the regulatory direction of crypto-related investment vehicles.
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