SEC's Gensler focused on 'investor protection' for Bitcoin ETFs

In a new interview with Yahoo Finance’s Brian Cheung, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler discusses how he views the launch of the first bitcoin futures ETF in the U.S. last week, along with his regulation outlook for the crypto space.

Video transcript

BRIAN CHEUNG: I want to start off in one of the hottest spaces, obviously, crypto. A lot of excitement over those Bitcoin futures ETFs that we saw last week, a few products that were launched. Just wondering if you had any thoughts about how those two products rolled out, the ones from ProShares in addition to Valkyrie. Is anything that you're seeing in the volume and interest in this brand-new product also guiding your thoughts on maybe the possibility of these applications that you're working through on a Bitcoin spot ETF?

GARY GENSLER: Brian, we really take a look at this-- these went effective, as you know, last week, but we look at these as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has Bitcoin futures. It's been regulated by our sibling regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, for four years. And then on top of that, there's the regulatory regime which we've had for nearly 80 years for investment funds and the like. We'd already had some Bitcoin futures mutual funds. They didn't get as much publicity, and these went effective along with that.

It's really a matter of bringing as much of this space within the investor-protection remit, and I think that that's really the story here is if projects, tokens come to us, work with us, and bring themselves inside the regulatory perimeter, investors will be better protected.