Jay Clayton, current chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), will conclude his tenure with the regulatory body at the end of the year.
Chairman Clayton will step down six months ahead of an earlier announced date of June 2021, effectively bringing to an end his three-and-a-half-year tenure with the Commission. He joined the SEC in May 2017 and has since played a crucial role in how the commission’s policies affected U.S financial markets, including the young industry around Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
A press release dedicated to Chairman Clayton’s achievement with the Commission noted that the agency “obtained orders for over $14 billion in monetary remedies, including a record $4.68 billion in the fiscal year 2020, and returned approximately $3.5 billion to harmed investors.”
But while the SEC reflects on the end of tenure for one of its longest-serving Chairs, the Bitcoin community is optimistic that his demise may pave the way for a long-awaited industry milestone.
The Wait for a Bitcoin ETF
Without a doubt, it was during Chairman Clayton’s tenure that the market for Bitcoin saw its most sporadic growth, growing from a tool for internet nerds to a full-fledged investment asset being held by public companies.
Over the same period, the U.S SEC has turned several requests for fund managers to list a public exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking Bitcoin. These included multiple and separate attempts by Winklevoss Capital, VanEck Investments, Wilshere Phoenix, and, more recently, San Francisco-based, Bitwise Asset Management.
On each of these occasions, the SEC cited being prone to market manipulation and the lack of regulated custody solutions as the reason why the Bitcoin market wasn’t mature enough to have a publicly-traded fund on a U.S exchange.
While those arguments were gladly welcomed in the industry’s early years, industry experts argue that the landscape has since changed with regulated custodians and exchanges now dominating the market. But the SEC has had none of that under Chairman Clayton’s stewardship, explaining the wave of optimism around his leaving office.
A lot of the things are starting to get lined up for the Bitcoin ETF. Mildly optimistic it happens in 2021 but will depend on how the SEC will change in the coming months.
— Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) November 16, 2020
Time will now tell whether the SEC lands a more industry-friendly steward that could shorten the long wait for a Bitcoin ETF.
Meanwhile, Chairman Clayton is in line to serve as the next United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, according to a recent nomination by U.S. Attorney General William Barr.
