Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest digital asset manager, is set to expand beyond North America, as it targets Europe. According to the Financial Times, the fund manager has been holding a series of meetings with potential partners to materialize the plans.
“We’re conducting some research, meeting with different organizations and different partners to determine what is going to be the best way for Grayscale to bring a lot of that accessibility, a lot of the insights we have to European investors,” Michael Sonnenshein, the Chief Executive Officer of the company, told the Financial Times. In addition, he wants to bring what they learned in the US to Europe with the manoeuvre.
Sonnenshein added: “We’re exploring a lot of European financial hubs to really think about what is going to be the right approach for us and how best to bring Grayscale to Europe.”
In an interview with the Financial News, Grayscale’s CEO expressed concern about 'double standards' in cryptocurrency regulation. According to him, it is “very difficult to understand” why the SEC continues to reject spot ETF proposals despite being comfortable with futures ETFs.
Delaying Spot Bitcoin ETFs
In February, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it was delaying Grayscale’s proposed ETF, a spot bitcoin exchange -traded fund. The SEC is concerned about how Grayscale will fend off manipulation and fraud.
Earlier in 2021, Grayscale asked to convert its GBPTC shares into a spot bitcoin ETF. This is the second time the SEC is delaying its decision on Grayscale’s application. The SEC has already rejected several ETF applications from WisdomTree, Krypton, Fidelity and SkyBridge.
In October 2021, the SEC did approve 2 bitcoin future-based funds: ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF and Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF. The SEC, to this date, has not approved a spot bitcoin ETF. Fidelity was able to launch its spot bitcoin ETF in Canada, Fidelity Advantage Bitcoin ETF (FBTC).
