Winklevoss twins’ push for SEC’s bitcoin fund approval in limbo

The Winklevoss twins probably won’t be getting a bitcoin boost this year.

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the Harvard-educated brothers who claimed to have helped invent Facebook, have been looking to launch the world’s first exchange-traded fund, or ETF, backed by bitcoin.

But the Securities and Exchange Commission, which rejected the Winklevosses’ bitcoin ETF application in March 2017, still believes the cryptocurrency is too prone to manipulation and theft for regulators to approve an investor-friendly ETF, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said at a New York conference Tuesday.

The SEC looks to approve ETFs with assets that are “free from the risk, or significant risk, of significant manipulation,” Clayton said during an afternoon question-and-answer session before digital currency investors.

The “risk of theft or disappearance” also is a major hurdle before approval, Clayton added.

Clayton’s statement comes as bitcoin has lost 81 percent of its value in 2018, making it one of the worst-performing assets in the world this year.

Reps for the Winklevoss twins didn’t respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.