In quite a recent interview, Michael Sonnenshein, the CEO of GBTC stated that he couldn’t envision why the SEC didn’t want to protect the investors of Grayscale, as well as return the true value of the asset to them. In the interview which took place on the 25th of February on What Bitcoin Did- a popular podcast that is hotels by Peter McCormack, the CEO explained that the SEC had completely violated the administrative procedures act by denying the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust approval to spot the Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, in June 2022.
He further explained that this act would make sure that the regulator didn’t show some unjust favoritism or act arbitrarily- further added that the SEC acted of their own accord by approving the Bitcoin Futures ETFs- all the while rejecting the conversion of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.
GBTC Has Been Snubbed By The SEC
Sonnenshein went on to note that when the SEC had first started approving the Bitcoin ETFs, GBTC took this as a symbol that the SEC was slowly, but surely, changing their opinion of Bitcoin. He further mentioned that there was around a couple of billion dollars worth of capital- that would potentially go back into the pockets of the investors on an overnight basis if the GBTC actually approved the spot Bitcoin ETF- with the fund bleeding back up to the net asset value or the NAV.
The CEO explained that this was the result of Grayscale Bitcoin trading at a discount to its net asset value, but if the tokens were to be converted into an ETF, there would not be a discount or a premium- rather, there would be an arbitraged mechanism that was embedded into it. Sonnenshein didn’t understand why the SEC didn’t want to protect the GBTC investors, as well as return the value to them.
