Last Updated: 12 October 2022
Grayscale has filed an opening brief in its lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Lawsuit
The asset manager calls the SEC’s arguments for rejecting bitcoin ETFs “deeply flawed”.
In a Twitter thread, Grayscale explains their plan of action. They accuse the exchange watchdog of not making the judgement on a spot market bitcoin ETF under the right jurisdictional frameworks. A futures-based ETF already exists in the US, but a spot market-based ETF does not.
According to lawyers at Grayscale, the two are similar in terms of risk profile and should therefore be treated the same.
“We believe the SEC is treating the spot bitcoin ETF arbitrarily, in a different way than it treats bitcoin futures ETFs, even though they have the same protection and risks and derive their price from the same underlying BTC market.”
We’ve filed the opening brief in our lawsuit against the SEC, challenging their decision to deny our application to convert $GBTC to a spot Bitcoin ETF.
A “brief” thread:
— Grayscale (@Grayscale) October 12, 2022
Letters and details
The tweetstorm also shows what the schedule will look like. The SEC has until 9 November at the latest to file its letter. This will be followed by a document from Grayscale, which will be due by 30 November.
Both parties are expected to file final submissions by 21 December 2022. After that, it will be time for the next proceedings in the lawsuit.
The case had originally been filed on 29 June earlier this year, just hours after the SEC rejected Grayscale’s application to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a spot bitcoin ETF.
Grayscale’s modus operandi has also been criticised. WisdomTree shared earlier this month that they actually want to work with the SEC to get the ETF done, rather than sue the watchdog. Therefore, they want to deal with the alleged market manipulation first.
