You may have heard of this thing called bitcoin. It’s become pretty popular. So popular, in fact, that the price of bitcoin is up more than 660% year-to-date.
It’s almost hard to believe that bitcoin started the year at less than $1,000. It’s currently around $7,350 as I write this. Bitcoin has been about as polarizing a financial instrument as you’ll find. For every market watcher who slaps a $1 million price target on bitcoin, there’s another that claims bitcoin is a fraud that’s destined to crash and burn.
There is no bitcoin ETF on the market today, but it hasn’t been for a lack of trying. Courtesy of Eric Balchunas, here’s where each of the proposed cryptocurrency ETFs stand.
The Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF (COIN) is the original attempted entry into the space. It was originally denied, but the SEC is currently reconsidering whether or not to approve it. The Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), which trades over-the-counter with the ticker GBTC, withdrew its application to be listed on one of the major exchanges. Those ETFs that plan on using bitcoin futures instead of actual bitcoin have withdrawn their applications because, well, bitcoin futures don’t exist yet (although now it looks like they’ll launch by the end of the year). I’d guess we’ll have one (or more) bitcoin ETFs sometime in 2018, although which one will debut first is anyone’s guess. The two new entries to the list, the Blockchain ETFs (which I’ll discuss below), were filed just this past week. These should get approved with little issue and may be a better means of accessing the crypto space.
Whether you think bitcoin and other digital currencies will be around long-term, the ETF industry will capitalize on the current trend sooner or later. Once the first domino falls, I’d expect a number of other providers to quickly file for their own cryptocurrency ETFs.
With that said, here are your four ETFs to watch in the coming week.
