SEC Pushes Back Decision On XRP ETFs Again, What’s Going On?

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has again delayed its decision on the XRP ETFs, raising discussions on when the Commission could approve these funds. Market expert and Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart has provided insights into when exactly an approval could come for these crypto ETFs. 

SEC Pushes Back Decision On XRP ETFs

A SEC release shows that the agency has delayed its decision on CBOE’s filing to list and trade shares of 21Shares XRP ETF. Likewise, the Commission pushed back on its decision to approve the request to list and trade shares of Grayscale’s XRP ETF. This decision came as the second deadline for a decision approached. 

The third deadline for the SEC to decide on Grayscale and 21Shares XRP ETFs is August 19 and 20, respectively. Meanwhile, the fourth and final deadline is October 18 and 19. In the meantime, the Commission has called for comments and rebuttals from the general public on why they should either approve or reject these filings. 

It is also worth mentioning that the second deadlines for the Bitwise and WisdomTree XRP ETFs are May 25 and 27, respectively, and the SEC is expected to delay its decision on those filings. Meanwhile, the second deadline for the Canary and CoinShares ETFs is May 26.

A decision on all these filings could be announced together, similar to what the Commission has done for other filings with close dates. The second deadline for Franklin Templeton’s XRP ETF is the 17th of next month. 

In the meantime, a positive is that the CME XRP and Micro XRP futures launched earlier this week. Following their launch, Nate Geraci, the president of the ETF store, declared that the XRP ETFs are just a matter of time, meaning that approval is inevitable. A regulated futures market guarantees that the SEC cannot deny these filings on the grounds of manipulation since the court has ruled that the futures and spot markets are similar. 

When An Approval Is Likely To Happen

In an X post, James Seyffart stated that the SEC will likely not approve the XRP ETFs early until late June or early July. He added that approval seems more likely in the early part of the fourth quarter of this year. This came as he noted that delays on these spot crypto ETFs are to be expected. 

The Bloomberg analyst further explained that the SEC typically takes the full time to respond to these filings. As such, an early decision would be out of the norm, no matter how crypto-friendly the current SEC administration is. Seyffart and his colleague Eric Balchunas predict that there is an 85% chance that the SEC approves the XRP ETFs this year. Meanwhile, Polymarket data shows an 83% chance of approval in 2025.