Bitcoin ETF race gets hotter as ARK Invest adds surveillance agreement to application

Paul Atkins could move one step closer to becoming the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s new crypto-friendly chair, with a Senate committee hearing reportedly in the works for March 27.President Donald Trump nominated Atkins to lead the SEC on Dec. 4, but his marriage into a billionaire family has reportedly caused headaches with financial disclosures — delaying his potential start date.While it isn’t clear whether the White House has produced those papers to the Senate, Senate Banking, House and Urban Affairs Chair Tim Scott is reportedly eyeing a March 27 hearing to review Atkins’ standing, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller said in a March 17 X post.“No clarity yet on whether the committee has Atkins’ paperwork in hand, but either way, this is the most momentum we’ve seen so far.”Atkins would, however, need to be voted in by the Senate at a later date. Mueller also said the Senate banking committee is also planning to hold a bipartisan meeting on Atkins’ nomination on March 21.Source: Eleanor MuellerIt follows an earlier March 3 Semafor report, where Mueller said financial disclosures had held Atkins back from scheduling a Senate hearing to review his standing.His wife’s family is tied to TAMKO Building Products LLC — a manufacturer of residential roofing shingles that reportedly turned over $1.2 billion in revenue in 2023, Forbes said on Dec. 14, 2024.“It’s a lot to go through,” one former Senate Banking Committee staffer reportedly told Mueller on March 3.“But he got named so early on, so I think that’s why people are starting to be like, ‘What the hell’s taking so long?’” Atkins previously served as an SEC commissioner between 2002 and 2008 and worked as a corporate lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP in New York before that. He is expected to regulate the crypto arena with a more collaborative approach than former SEC Chair Gary Gensler.It’s been almost four months since Atkins was chosen by Trump to lead the SEC on Dec. 4, and over two months since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20.A late start for an SEC chair wouldn’t be too unusual, however.The two most recent SEC chairs, Gary Gensler and Jay Clayton, started on April 17, 2021, and May 4, 2017 — months after presidential transitions occurred in those years.Related: SEC’s enforcement case against Ripple may be wrapping upMeanwhile, Mark Uyeda has been serving as the SEC’s acting chair since Gensler left on Jan. 20.Since then, the Uyeda-led SEC has established a Crypto Task Force led by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce and canceled a controversial rule that asked financial firms holding crypto to record them as liabilities on their balance sheets.The SEC has dropped several investigations and lawsuits that the Gensler-led commission filed against the likes of Coinbase, Consensys, Robinhood, Gemini, Uniswap and OpenSea over the last month.The SEC is also looking to abandon a rule requiring crypto firms to register as exchanges and may even axe the Biden administration’s proposed crypto custody rules, Uyeda said on March 17.Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered

Asset manager Hashdex has amended its S-1 regulatory filing for its cryptocurrency index exchange-traded fund (ETF) to include seven altcoins in addition to Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), according to a March 14 filing. The revision proposes adding seven specific altcoins to the index ETF — Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Chainlink (LINK), Avalanche (AVAX), Litecoin (LTC), and Uniswap (UNI). As of March 17, the Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF holds only Bitcoin and Ether. Previous versions of Hashdex’s S-1 suggested the possibility of adding other cryptocurrencies in the future but didn’t specify which ones.According to the filing, the proposed altcoins additions “are decentralized peer-to-peer computer systems that rely on public key cryptography for security, and their values are primarily influenced by market supply and demand.”The revised filing signals how ETF issuers are accelerating planned crypto product rollouts now that US President Donald Trump has instructed federal regulators to take a more lenient stance on digital asset regulation. As part of the transition, the ETF plans to switch its reference index from the Nasdaq Crypto US Index — which only tracks BTC and ETH — to the more comprehensive Nasdaq Crypto Index, the filing said. The asset manager did not specify when it plans to make the change. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) must sign off on the proposed changes before they can take effect. Hashdex plans to add seven altcoins to its index ETF. Source: SECRelated: US crypto index ETFs off to slow start in first days since listingAccelerating approvalsIn December, the SEC gave the green light to both Hashdex and Franklin Templeton’s respective Bitcoin and Ether index ETFs. Both ETFs were listed in February, initially drawing relatively modest inflows, data shows. They are the first US ETFs aiming to offer investors a one-stop-shop diversified crypto index. Asset manager Grayscale has also applied to convert its Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund to an ETF. Created in 2018, the fund holds a crypto index portfolio comprising BTC, ETH, SOL and XRP, among others. Industry analysts say crypto index ETFs are the next big focus for issuers after ETFs holding BTC and ETH listed in January and July, respectively.“The next logical step is index ETFs because indices are efficient for investors — just like how people buy the S&P 500 in an ETF. This will be the same in crypto,” Katalin Tischhauser, head of investment research at crypto bank Sygnum, told Cointelegraph in August.In February, the SEC acknowledged more than a dozen exchange filings related to cryptocurrency ETFs, according to records.The filings, submitted by Cboe and other exchanges, addressed proposed rule changes concerning staking, options, in-kind redemptions and new types of altcoin funds.Magazine: US enforcement agencies are turning up the heat on crypto-related crime

Robinhood has launched a betting markets hub as the online brokerage — best known for stock trading — expands its presence in emergent asset classes, including cryptocurrencies and event contracts, according to a March 17 announcement. Robinhood’s stock, HOOD, rose roughly 8% on the Nasdaq after the announcement, according to data from Google Finance. The new betting feature will let users “trade contracts for what the upper bound of the target fed funds rate will be in May, as well as the upcoming men’s and women’s College Basketball Tournaments,” it said. HOOD’s intraday performance on the Nasdaq on March 17. Source: Google FinanceThe online brokerage is tapping Kalshi, the US’ first CFTC-regulated prediction platform, to operate the event contract platform, it said. Kalshi is already registered to list dozens of event contracts, covering outcomes ranging from election results to Rotten Tomatoes movie ratings.Prediction markets “play an important role at the intersection of news, economics, politics, sports, and culture,” JB Mackenzie, vice president and general manager of futures and international at Robinhood, said in a statement. Experts say political betting markets often capture public sentiment more accurately than polls. Platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket accurately predicted US President Donald Trump’s November election win even as polls indicated a tossup.Related: Robinhood tips Singapore launch, touts memecoin interest: ReportRising popularityPrediction markets have become increasingly popular in the US since September 2024, when Kalshi prevailed in a lawsuit challenging a CFTC decision to bar it from listing political event contracts.By November, trading volumes across popular prediction markets neared $4 billion for contracts tied to the US elections.Robinhood tested the waters of political event contracts in October when it started letting certain users bet on the outcome of the presidential election between former Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump.In February, Robinhood suspended Super Bowl betting after receiving a request from the CFTC to nix its customers’ access to the event contracts.Beyond stock tradingRobinhood has been expanding its footprint in emerging asset classes, including cryptocurrencies and derivatives. On March 13, the company listed memecoins like Pengu (PENGU), Pnut (PNUT) and Popcat (POPCAT) in a bid to expand its presence in crypto. Back in January, it rolled out futures contracts tied to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC).Robihood’s latest earnings report shows the firm posted a 700% year-over-year jump in crypto revenues in the fourth quarter of 2024 as Trump’s election win and rising market prices fueled boosted crypto trading.X Hall of Flame: Memecoins will die and DeFi will rise again — Sasha Ivanov