The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has directed First Trust Advisors and SkyBridge Capital to mark their bitcoin (BTC) ETF application as abandoned, following a lack of response to prior communications from the Commission.
First Trust, a pioneer in BTC ETF filings, and SkyBridge Capital, led by Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House Communications Director, had initially applied for a bitcoin ETF in March 2021. However, their application, like many others, was rejected by the SEC in January 2022.
Despite the rejection, First Trust and SkyBridge did not resubmit their application post the approval of BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF, one of the first to receive SEC approval after revisions.
In a notice released on Wednesday, the SEC indicated that the registration statement for the First Trust SkyBridge Bitcoin ETF would be considered abandoned due to the applicants’ failure to respond to previous communications.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas expressed uncertainty regarding the firms’ decision not to reapply post-BlackRock’s successful application. Bitcoin is currently trading near $72,000, according to CoinDesk Indicies data, while the broader CoinDesk 20 Index remains flat at 2,740.