Media: BlackRock has no plans to launch a spot XRP ETF

What’s new? The world’s largest investment company BlackRock is not yet going to launch a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on the native token of the Ripple (XRP) protocol. Fox Business journalist Charles Gasparino reported that one of the main reasons is the lack of clarity regarding the status and regulation of XRP in the United States.

Source: Twitter.com

What else is known? According to Gasparino, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has a limited understanding of XRP, and as such, the asset manager’s involvement in the creation of the XRP ETF may be more speculative than expected. This statement followed an interview with Fink in which the CEO did not inform Gasparino of BlackRock’s plans for XRP ETF.

In addition, BlackRock’s review of a potential application to launch such a product could be complicated by the lack of a unified position from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Thus, spot bitcoin ETFs were allowed by the regulator to enter the local market only on January 11, 10 months after the first application was filed by ARK Invest and 21 Shares.

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Meanwhile, BTC ETFs were approved by only three commissioners out of five, including SEC chair Gary Gensler. The key role in the approval was played by the court decision on Grayscale’s lawsuit against the SEC. According to it, the Commission did not have enough grounds to refuse to launch a bitcoin fund, which Gensler himself mentioned in the press release.

In turn, the status of XRP remains uncertain. It has been the subject of an SEC lawsuit against Ripple since December 2020. The regulator claims that the fintech company’s 2013 distribution of XRP was an unregistered offering of securities.

In July 2023, the court ruled that XRP itself was not a security and could be offered to retail investors through digital exchanges. The SEC attempted to appeal the decision but was denied.

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In October, the SEC withdrew its lawsuit against Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Chairman Chris Larsen, but in January urged the court to order the company to file financial statements for 2022-2023 related to institutional sales. The company later filed an objection to the request.