It looks like the government isn’t a huge fan of bitcoin as an investment vehicle. The Winklevoss Twins (of Facebook fame) recently filed to open an ETF or fund that invested in bitcoin as an asset. On March 10th, 2017 the SEC ruled against the ETF claiming that it didn’t abide by Section 6(b)(5) of the Exchange Act. Basically the SEC feels that bitcoin is to unregulated to be traded publicly on open and regulated exchanges.
Due to the ruling the market value of bitcoin plummeted almost immediately more than 15%. This is another bump in the road for the heavily utilized yet heavily volatile crypto-currency. That said the current price point for the current is still above the $1000 per bitcoin, making it still one of the most valuable and fastest growing crypto-currencies in existence.
It will be interesting over the next few days to see how the markets react to this ruling as it’s one of the most definite “statements” by the United States regarding the validity of the currency as a long term investment or asset.
