The SEC Rejects a Bitcoin ETF 3-1. The Lone Dissenter Gets a Nickname Within Hours That Sticks for Life.

The Bitcoin community didn't wait for a press conference. They named her before the day was even over, and the name never left.

The Winklevoss twins had already been rejected once, in March 2017. On July 26, 2018, their second attempt at a Bitcoin ETF through their exchange Gemini came before the full SEC Commission for a final vote.

The result was 3-1 against. The majority's reasoning: Bitcoin markets were unregulated and vulnerable to manipulation, which made a Bitcoin-backed exchange-traded product too risky to approve under the Commission's investor protection mandate.

One commissioner, Hester Peirce, voted no on the rejection itself. Her dissent flipped the majority's own logic: blocking a regulated, transparent ETF didn't protect investors, it pushed them toward less efficient, less transparent ways of getting Bitcoin exposure instead.

The Bitcoin community didn't wait for follow-up coverage. Within hours of her dissent going public, people online had already nicknamed her Crypto Mom. The name stuck for the rest of her career at the SEC. It became a running bit, too: Peirce developed a habit of giving her statements witty titles, "Kraken Down" and "Outdated" among them, and industry lawyers reportedly started scanning SEC speech indexes just for her name, reading the title before the substance.

Her Winklevoss dissent set the terms of an argument that would run for five and a half more years: was Bitcoin too risky to regulate, or was refusing to regulate it the actual failure? The SEC kept rejecting ETF applications. Peirce kept dissenting.

The turning point wasn't a change of heart. In August 2023, a US Court of Appeals ruled the SEC needed a coherent explanation for denying a Bitcoin ETF conversion, effectively forcing the agency's hand after a decade of refusals.

On January 10, 2024, the SEC approved spot Bitcoin ETFs. Peirce's statement that day was titled "Out, Damned Spot! Out, I Say!" She wrote: "We squandered a decade of opportunities to do our job... we refused to do so until a court called our bluff."

She was careful about what she was actually celebrating. "I am not celebrating bitcoin or bitcoin-related products," she wrote. "I am celebrating the right of American investors to express their thoughts on bitcoin by buying and selling spot bitcoin ETPs."

Part of an ongoing series on Bitcoin history. This event falls on July 26, 2018.

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# The SEC Rejects a Bitcoin ETF 3-1. The Lone Dissenter Gets a Nickname Within Hours That Sticks for Life.

![](https://m.stacker.news/149706)

***

The Bitcoin community didn't wait for a press conference. They named her before the day was even over, and the name never left.

## A Second Rejection

The Winklevoss twins had already been rejected once, in March 2017. On July 26, 2018, their second attempt at a Bitcoin ETF through their exchange Gemini came before the full SEC Commission for a final vote.

The result was 3-1 against. The majority's reasoning: Bitcoin markets were unregulated and vulnerable to manipulation, which made a Bitcoin-backed exchange-traded product too risky to approve under the Commission's investor protection mandate.

## The Dissent

One commissioner, Hester Peirce, voted no on the rejection itself. Her dissent flipped the majority's own logic: blocking a regulated, transparent ETF didn't protect investors, it pushed them toward less efficient, less transparent ways of getting Bitcoin exposure instead.

The Bitcoin community didn't wait for follow-up coverage. Within hours of her dissent going public, people online had already nicknamed her Crypto Mom. The name stuck for the rest of her career at the SEC. It became a running bit, too: Peirce developed a habit of giving her statements witty titles, "Kraken Down" and "Outdated" among them, and industry lawyers reportedly started scanning SEC speech indexes just for her name, reading the title before the substance.

## Five and a Half Years

Her Winklevoss dissent set the terms of an argument that would run for five and a half more years: was Bitcoin too risky to regulate, or was refusing to regulate it the actual failure? The SEC kept rejecting ETF applications. Peirce kept dissenting.

The turning point wasn't a change of heart. In August 2023, a US Court of Appeals ruled the SEC needed a coherent explanation for denying a Bitcoin ETF conversion, effectively forcing the agency's hand after a decade of refusals.

## Vindication

On January 10, 2024, the SEC approved spot Bitcoin ETFs. Peirce's statement that day was titled "Out, Damned Spot! Out, I Say!" She wrote: "We squandered a decade of opportunities to do our job... we refused to do so until a court called our bluff."

She was careful about what she was actually celebrating. "I am not celebrating bitcoin or bitcoin-related products," she wrote. "I am celebrating the right of American investors to express their thoughts on bitcoin by buying and selling spot bitcoin ETPs."

***

*Part of an ongoing series on Bitcoin history. This event falls on July 26, 2018.*