Investing.com - Bitcoin and other major digital coin prices dropped on Thursday in Asia after CBOE Global Markets pulled plans to list a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), citing the U.S. government shutdown as the reason.
The CBOE’s BZX Equity Exchange published a notice on January 23, saying that it pulled its request to change a rule that could allow it to list a Bitcoin ETF. The ETF is supported by investment firm VanEck and financial services company SolidX.
VanEck’s CEO Jan van Eck said on CNBC that the shutdown affected the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which in turn dragged the process of seeking approval for the ETF.
“We were engaged in discussions with the SEC about the Bitcoin-related issues, custody, market manipulation, prices, and that had to stop,” he said.
“Instead of trying to slip through or something, we just had the application pulled and we will re-file and re-engage in the discussions when the SEC gets going again,” he added.
Bitcoin traders were looking forward to the approval of a Bitcoin ETF, hoping it would attract more buyers to popularize the digital coin.
Affected by the news, Bitcoin lost 1.15% to $3,548.3 by 12:26 AM ET (05:26 GMT).
Other digital coins went down the same track. Ethereum edged down 2.52% to $115.77, XRP was down 1.56% to $ 0.31424, and Litecoin shed 1.97% to $31.241.
In other news, lawmakers in U.S. state New Hampshire proposed to widen the acceptance of cryptocurrencies. They filed a bill to let state-level agencies such as the state’s tax office to accept them as payment. If the bill wins approval, the state treasurer will have to come up with a plan to do so by November 1.