The decision came just hours after the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets granted accelerated approval for the application on July 22.
The stay, issued by the SEC’s Office of the Secretary, temporarily suspends the fund’s transition to ETF status pending further review. If allowed to proceed, the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund (BITW) would trade on NYSE Arca under the amended Rule 8.500-E, which governs the listing of Trust Units.
As of July 22, Bitcoin accounts for 73.8% of the portfolio, followed by Ethereum at 13.8% and XRP at 6.5%. Other constituents include Solana, Cardano, Sui, Chainlink, Avalanche, Litecoin, and Polkadot in smaller proportions.
The SEC’s latest move echoes a similar pattern observed earlier this month.
According to him:
“[This] might be the SEC’s way of stalling these things from becoming ETFs before they come up with a digital assets ETF framework. AKA some sort of generic listing standard for what digital assets are allowed in an ETF wrapper and what criteria they’ll use.”
According to him, the financial regulator could be deliberately using the delegated authority to delay final approvals, potentially to avoid penalizing applicants like Grayscale or to circumvent the 240-day statutory review period.
Nevertheless, the lawyer noted that these issues should not occur under SEC Paul Atkins’s pro-crypto regime.
Considering this, Johnsson believes the uncertainty could be resolved before the October deadline, when several high-profile ETF applications are expected to face final decisions.
