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July 25, 2018 at 12:52 PM
San Francisco-based Bitwise Asset Management has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to trade the first public cryptocurrency index ETF. Unlike other crypto ETF filings with the agency, the Bitwise ETF Trust is not based on a single cryptocurrency but on a market-cap weighted index of the 10 largest cryptocurrencies, known as the Bitwise HOLD 10.
The Bitwise HOLD 10 is currently available to accredited investors — with a net worth above $1 million or an annual income over $200,000 — in the form of a private placement fund that they can also access as part of a self-directed IRA.
(Related: Cryptocurrency Index Fund Offers Shares to IRAs)
The firm’s ETF “would be publicly available open to all, and trade on a major exchange,” says Matt Hougan, global head of research at Bitwise.
The Bitwise ETF filing follows several others before the SEC: a Bitcoin ETF from VanEck Associates in collaboration with SolidX following an agency rejection of Bitcoin ETFs filed by the two firms; long and short Bitcoin futures ETFs from GraniteShares and from ProShares, and a series of five bull and bear leveraged Bitcoin futures ETFs from Direxion.
“All of these funds plan to offer exposure to a single coin such as Bitcoin or Ether,” said John Hyland, global head of exchange-traded products at Bitwise, in a statement. “Our proposed offering is obviously different.”
(Related: Another ETF Veteran Goes Crypto)
