BlackRock Files Bitcoin Spot ETF Application, Taps Coinbase

The $10 trillion asset management giant BlackRock filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch a Bitcoin Spot ETF on Thursday — a product that has yet to see life within the United States.

BlackRock plans to partner with Coinbase to provide custodianship of funds-backed Bitcoin, as is the case with Bitcoin Trading service announced last year.

BlackRock’s ETF offer

like mentioned By CNBC, the asset manager filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch the iShares Bitcoin Trust, which would provide investor easy access to Bitcoin from the Wall Street Giant.

“The Trust seeks to mirror the overall price performance of Bitcoin,” it reads filing. The Trust’s assets primarily consist of Bitcoin held by the Bitcoin Custodian on behalf of the Trust.

The filing added that the shares in the trust are intended to form a simple means of investing in Bitcoin rather than trading and holding it on a peer-to-peer basis.

Other companies have spent years trying to launch a similar product, but the SEC has consistently refused. By contrast, the agency approved several Bitcoin futures ETFsbacked by bitcoin futures contracts instead of real bitcoin.

The SEC favors the futures product because the market for its underlying assets is monitored by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which can help spot market manipulation.

Will BlackRock succeed?

Grayscale’s spot ETF proposal was rejected last year because it attempted to form a watch-sharing agreement with the CME Bitcoin Futures Market, which the SEC did not consider to be sufficiently relevant to the Bitcoin spot market.

Grayscale has since sued the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the judges overseeing the case have voiced their opinions doubt On the SEC argument.

Blackrock said it will determine the value of Bitcoin in its confidence each day by reference to the CF Benchmarks.

The index tracks the price of bitcoin across Coinbase, Bitstamp, iBit, Kraken, Gemini, and LMAX Digital, and strives for “manipulation resistance” while not including “any future prices in its methodology.”