In an interview that took place during the recently concluded Crypto Finance Conference (CFC), CNBC host Brian Kelly was quoted as saying that there was no chance of “Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) seeing the light of day in 2019”.

Over the course of the three-day event, Kelly was seen talking about a host of different issues including the state of the crypto current market as well as the future of this burgeoning domain. On the matter, he noted that the crypto industry was coming close to the end of a bear season, however, prices of premier altcoins could dip a little more before normalizing once again.

He then went on to add:

“Probably in 2019 the focus will be on currencies — Bitcoin, Litecoin, some of those — because we have quite a bit of geopolitical tension in the world. We are starting to see some global macro players use Bitcoin as alternative to their gold position, or as a way to hedge against fiat currency fluctuations and volatility.”

Even though Kelly believes that Bitcoin will continue to garner more and more mainstream traction over the course of 2019, he is still not optimistic about the chances of Bitcoin ETFs gaining the SEC’s approval anytime this year.

For those of our readers who may not be aware, over the course of the past 10-12 months, the US SEC has received a plethora of Bitcoin ETF applications (including those from high-profile players such as the Winklevoss twins). However, as things stand, none of these applications have yet been approved.

Using this knowledge as his primary hook, Kelly continuously reiterated his stance that the government agency was highly unlikely to change its current position on BTC ETFs in the near future— primarily because there still exists a

“whole load of financial issues in relation to these financial tools that have yet to be resolved”.

As per the CNBC analyst, it will take at least another year before relevant authorities can settle all of the issues that persist in regards to the aforementioned offering.

Rounding off his talk at the conference, Kelly noted that in the coming few years, the world could possibly bear witness to yet another massive economic recession which would make cryptocurrencies more appealing to the masses than ever before.

Last but not least, last year Kelly had gone on record to state that Bitcoin ETFs would not gain approval from the SEC at least until Feb 2019. Even then, his reasoning was that the BTC futures market had yet not become “mature enough” to make such novel offerings available to the public at large.

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