Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Jay Clayton has claimed that the cryptocurrency ecosystem has “made progress” in removing issues that previously prevented the approval of a Bitcoin ETF.

In the past, Clayton has said that price manipulation and the custody of digital assets were two major issues that prevented a Bitcoin ETF being approved.

In an interview with CNBC, Clayton said: “There’s still work to be done. How do we know that we can have custody and have a hold of these crypto assets? That’s a key question. An even harder question given that they trade on largely unregulated exchanges, is how can we be sure that those prices aren’t subject to significant manipulation?”

He continued: “Now, progress is being made, but people needed to answer those hard questions for us to be comfortable that this was the appropriate type of product.”

The original concerns were stated in a memo 18 months ago, but since then, Nasdaq has confirmed it will list Bitcoin futures while Bakkt is also in line to launch a similar product.

Nasdaq’s futures product will utilise SMARTS technology, which is known for combatting price manipulation and can recognise when an account is wash trading or spoofing.

Bakkt, on the other hand, will settle its contracts in Bitcoin. This means that the company has to store and retain custody of the asset, which it is doing in a $125 million insured warehouse in New York.

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