Gensler says SEC's move to approve spot bitcoin ETFs was limited, despite excitement about possible Ethereum ETFs

Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler said Wednesday that the agency's move to approve several spot bitcoin exchange-traded products earlier this month was limited to just the single cryptocurrency, despite some anticipation by some that spot Ethereum ETH -4.46% ETFs could be next to gain approval. 

"As I said two weeks ago, that which we did with regard to bitcoin exchange traded products is cabined to this one commodity non-security and shouldn't be read to be anything other than that," Gensler said during a media briefing when asked for his thoughts on ether ETFs. 

The agency approved 11 spot bitcoin ETFs on Jan. 10 following a decision in a D.C. court by three judges that said the SEC had to re-review a bid for Grayscale's spot bitcoin ETF application.

Gensler said there is now better disclosure for investors when it comes to the bitcoin funds. 

"In that light, there's also better disclosure," Gensler said. "They're listed on stock exchanges now rather than trading in over the counter markets. There were 10 or 11 that went live at the same time that brought a certain amount of competition. You've seen some competition that investors benefited from lower fees." 

Crypto experts have been both optimistic and pessimistic that a spot ether ETF is on the horizon, and some think an approval from the SEC could come as early as May. This comes as big name firms, such as Fidelity and BlackRock, have also applied for a spot Ethereum ETF over the last few months.

Ongoing lawsuits

The SEC is embroiled in two lawsuits against crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase, and lawyers for the agency have argued in court over the past week over why those cases should not be dismissed. 

The SEC sued Binance Holdings and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao in June, accusing the crypto exchange of lying to customers, failing to restrict U.S. investors from accessing Binance.com, misdirecting capital to separated investment funds owned by Zhao, and operating as an unregistered exchange. The SEC also said 12 tokens on the exchange were securities, including BNB and BUSD. 

Coinbase was sued by the SEC in June for allegedly operating as an unregistered exchange, broker and clearing agency. 

Gensler, when asked by a reporter about his thoughts on the recent court hearings, said he would let enforcement staff and the agency's litigators speak on specifics. 

"But stepping back from any one case, I just think that the investing public, if they're interested in investing in crypto securities, they should be aware and careful that these crypto security tokens are not necessarily giving them the appropriate disclosures and they're not getting those disclosures from these non compliant token operators," Gensler said.