And yet, under SEC guidelines, the federal regulator has the authority to delay ETF applications for up to 240 days — by opening them to public comment or otherwise — from the first filing in the Federal Register.
At the time of publication, major asset management firms with applications under review by the SEC include BlackRock, ARK Invest, Bitwise Asset Management, and others.
ARK Invest, led by Cathie Wood, filed to list its ARK 21Shares spot Bitcoin ETF in May 2023 and received a new delay from the SEC on Aug. 11, pushing the deadline back another 21 days.
Thus, with the maximum 240-day extension window available to the SEC, the final deadline for ARK’s Bitcoin ETF is in January 2024, while approval or disapproval of all the other firms’ offerings could come as late as March 2024.