On January 9th several companies who filed for Exchange Trading Funds related to Bitcoin were asked by America\'s SEC to withdraw their proposals. The Securities and Exchange Commission asked three named companies to remove their ETF applications from consideration: VanEck, ProShares, and Rafferty Asset Management. The latter, a capital markets company, said the SEC\'s concerns were in regard to the valuation and liquidity of the \"underlying asset\", i.e. Bitcoin.

None of these proposals were, in themselves, ETFs for Bitcoin, but were related to establishing futures markets for the cryptocurrency. An \"actual Bitcoin ETF,\" one directly concerning the coin itself, would signify for many its acceptance by mainstream financial institutions. It would require investments made in the ETF to be backed by \"actual\" bitcoins, the underlying asset which would need to be purchased by the fund.

The SEC previously rejected a proposal by Winklevoss for an ETF early in 2017, but it had been believed this rejection left some leeway for the future approval of a Bitcoin ETF. Bitcoin\'s December launch on the regulated Chicago futures markets made investors optimistic at the end of 2017, but the SEC\'s current reluctance to consider ETFs based on these markets is a step back in Bitcoin\'s progress.