Having met the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in August 2018, officials of VanEck, SolidX and Cboe BZX Exchange have met with the Commission again, in the latest attempt to convince the regulator to approve the nation's first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), according to an official presentation submitted to the SEC.The firms gave the pitch to the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance, Division of Trading and Markets, and Office of General Counsel.The presentation given to staffers of the agency was focused on comparing the cryptocurrency market to other markets that already have exchange-traded funds, including silver and gold markets. The promoters of the VanEck/SolidX ETF hammered on its long-held view — that the bitcoin market is ready for an ETF.Using the vector error-correction (VEC) model to compare pricing data between exchanges over an extended period of time, the proponents argued that bitcoin’s price between the futures market and the spot market are connected. They then compared these price correlations to the markets for commodities like gold and silver, which also function as money substitutes to indicate that bitcoin features a "well-functioning capital market.""The empirical evidence indicates that the spot and futures prices are cointegrated. This indicates that the spot and futures prices are tightly linked."On the issue of market manipulation, one issue that the SEC ...
