By Daniel Nathan, Jason Somensatto and Jorge Pesok ( October 17, 2017, 12:34 PM EDT) -- The race is on to provide investors greater exposure to bitcoin. To date, the desire of several applicants to obtain approval of a bitcoin exchange-traded fund has butted up against regulators' stated concerns about the possibility of manipulation or other types of abuse. In the face of rejections of their applications, these applicants, and those who seek an easier path to investing in bitcoin, are wondering whether regulators are putting the brakes on because of inchoate concerns about a new and still somewhat unknown technology. In March of this year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rejected two applications to create an exchange-traded fund tied to the value of bitcoin. The SEC's rejections hinged on, among other things, concerns that the lack of regulation of, and visibility into, spot markets for trading bitcoin created an unacceptable level of risk of manipulation of the bitcoin market. More recently, the SEC delayed consideration of two other ETF applications seeking to provide investors exposure to bitcoin futures markets because the underlying derivatives are not yet tradable. This article explores the regulatory review and approval process that the bitcoin ETF's underwent and explains why future bitcoin ETF applications may have more success....