Swiss asset manager Pando Asset has unexpectedly joined the American spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) race quite late.
On Tuesday, the company filed the necessary Form S-1 outlining the proposed Pando Asset Spot Bitcoin Trust. If approved, this Trust will trade under the ticker “PBC” on the Cboe BZX exchange.
The trustee is Coinbase Global Inc.; Bank of New York Mellon will handle administrative duties. The Trust plans to use the CF Bitcoin benchmark rate from CME Group as its pricing source.
While Pando already provides a range of crypto-related Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) in Europe, this will be the company’s first product offering to target US clients.
BlackRock and the SEC meet to talk about the ETF bid.
According to agency documents, the SEC met with executives from BlackRock and Invesco on November 28 to discuss their bids for Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs).
In response to the SEC’s concerns raised during a previous meeting on the effects on balance sheets and risks to US broker-dealers doing business with offshore crypto businesses, BlackRock proposed a revision to their redemption model.
According to Balchunas, the amendment calls for offshore businesses to purchase Bitcoin from Coinbase and pay the U.S.-registered broker-dealer in cash upfront because they are unable to handle Bitcoin directly.
The SEC is requesting that ETFs have redemption models that “put [the] onus on issuers to conduct transactions in Bitcoin and keeps brokers and dealers from having to use unregistered subsidiaries or intermediary firms to deal [with] the BTC,” as Balchunas clarified in an X post on November 17. Broker-dealers are not permitted to deal in Bitcoin.
