Bitwise Asset Management, one of the largest and fastest-growing crypto-specialist asset managers today announced the launch of the Bitwise Crypto Industry Innovators ETF (NYSE: BITQ). BITQ aims to provide investors with exposure to valuable public listed cryptocurrency companies that are participants in the growing bitcoin and cryptocurrency sector like Coinbase.
This opens up an opportunity for investors to gain exposure to the crypto market without the challenges of directly holding crypto assets like bitcoin and ethereum. The ETF index will only include companies that are engaged in actual, material activity in the crypto sector and have at least $100 million of liquid crypto assets on their balance sheet.
What is a crypto ETF?
An ETF is a fund that can be traded on an exchange like a stock, which means they can be bought and sold throughout the trading day (unlike mutual funds, which are priced at the end of the trading day). ETFs give you a way to buy and sell a basket of assets without having to buy all the components individually, and they often have lower fees than other types of funds. Depending on the type, ETFs have varying levels of risk.
A cryptocurrency exchange-traded fund (ETF) works, in theory, like any other ETF. While most ETFs track an index or a basket of assets, a cryptocurrency ETF would track one or more digital tokens. Like other ETFs, digital token ETFs would trade like a common stock on an exchange, and they would be subject to changes in price throughout the day as investors buy and sell.
“Over the past few years, many investors have had to watch from the sidelines as a select few have reaped the rewards of stellar cryptocurrency returns,” said Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitwise. “We’ve heard time and again from clients that the primary challenge has been finding a way to access the incredibly complex and fast-moving crypto space.
The aim of BITQ is to make crypto investment opportunities available through traditional investing platforms and a familiar, liquid, and cost-effective ETF. The BITQ fund tracks the Bitwise Crypto Industry Innovators 30 Index. Developed by Bitwise with input from Moorgate Benchmarks’ index research team, the index is calculated and distributed by Moorgate Benchmarks, a rapidly growing index calculation and benchmark administration company based in London, England with deep expertise in the index space.
