Cathie Wood’s ARK Adds Surveillance-Sharing Agreement to Bitcoin ETF Application
Cathie Wood's investment management firm, ARK Invest, is on the growing list of US-based firms that filed for spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) approval with the SEC.
The investment manager, alongside crypto asset manager 21Shares, filed an amended spot BTC ETF proposal and added a surveillance sharing agreement.
This amendment followed almost two weeks after BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF filing that generated a loud buzz within the crypto ecosystem.
BlackRock’s ETF filing contained the surveillance agreement, implying that ARK and 21Shares added the latest revision to match BlackRock’s.
ARK Invest and 21Shares submitted their spot Bitcoin ETF proposal to the SEC in April, nearly two months before BlackRock’s application came along.
Theoretically, the duration and amendment move could place the firms ahead of BlackRock in obtaining the SEC’s approval.
Bloomberg Intelligence senior ETF analyst Eric Balchuna said ARK and 21 shares should receive approval first since they filed before BlackRock.
“If the SEC needed that—if that’s the silver bullet—now they both have the silver bullets,” added Balchuna.
A clause in ARK Invest’s filing mimics a statement in BlackRock's spot BTC ETF application. The filing states that ARK Invest expects to enter the surveillance agreement, dubbed "Spot BTC SSA," with the Chicago Board Options (CBOE) BZX Exchange.
For context, CBOE is a leading US-based securities and derivatives market offering fully collateralized Bitcoin and Ethereum futures.
A surveillance-sharing agreement requires exchanges to share information with regulators to prevent potential market manipulations.
The SEC has adamantly rejected many Bitcoin ETF proposals citing market manipulation as one of its concerns.
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