The first U.S. bitcoin futures ETF will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday

Asset management company ProShares' bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) will officially be listed on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday with the fund code BITO.

The price of Bitcoin rose to $62,000 at the end of last week. As of press time, the price of the cryptocurrency is approximately $61,346.5 per coin.
“We believe that after years of efforts, many investors are eagerly awaiting the launch of a Bitcoin-related ETF,” said Michael Sapir, CEO of ProShares, in a statement on Monday. “Some cryptocurrency investors may be reluctant to open another account with a cryptocurrency provider, who are concerned that these providers are unregulated and pose security risks. Now, BITO provides investors with the opportunity to access Bitcoin through a familiar format and investment method.”
Four other companies also hope to advance their Bitcoin ETFs this month, and the Invesco ETF could be listed as early as this week. (Note: Golden Finance reported that Invesco Ltd abandoned its application for a Bitcoin futures ETF. Invesco said it has decided not to launch a Bitcoin futures ETF in the near future. However, it will continue to work with Galaxy Digital to provide investors with a full range of products, including digital asset ETFs seeking physical support.)
Ian Balina Bio, CEO of data and analytics company Token Metrics, said: "This may be the biggest recognition of cryptocurrency by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He also pointed out that global regulators have been at odds with the cryptocurrency industry for many years, hindering retail investors' acceptance of cryptocurrencies. This move "may open the floodgates for new capital and new talent to flow into the field."
Since 2017, at least 10 asset managers have sought approval to launch a Bitcoin spot ETF, which would provide investors with a tool to buy Bitcoin itself, rather than derivatives related to Bitcoin. The SEC, led by Jay Clayton at the time, unanimously rejected the proposals, insisting that none of them could show resistance to market manipulation. The wave of applications for Bitcoin futures ETFs followed after SEC Chairman Gensler said in an August speech that he would favor investment tools including futures.
Investing in a futures-based ETF is not the same as investing in Bitcoin directly. A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell an asset at an agreed-upon price at a future date. ETFs based on futures contracts track cash-settled futures contracts, not the price of the asset itself.
“If you factor in the annualized roll yield, the total cost of a futures-based ETF could be between 5% and 10%,” said Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management, which has also filed its own bitcoin futures ETF application with the SEC.
Hougan added: “Futures-based ETFs are more confusing. They face challenges like position limits and official dilution, so they don’t have 100% exposure to the futures market.”
Four bitcoin futures ETFs, ProShares, Valkyrie, Invesco and Van Eck, will be reviewed in October. They are allowed to be listed 75 days after filing documents, provided that the SEC does not intervene during this period.
Many hope that the smooth listing of these ETFs will pave the way for Bitcoin spot ETFs in the near future. In addition to Gensler's preference for futures-based ETFs, the market for this industry has also become more developed in the short term since the first wave of ETF applications. For many years, the SEC has been challenging the crypto industry to prove that there is a large regulated market in addition to the Bitcoin spot market. The research submitted by Bitwise to the SEC last week also confirms this claim.
Hougan said: "The Bitcoin market is becoming more and more mature, and the CME Bitcoin futures market is actually the main source of price discovery in the entire Bitcoin world. The price of the CME market will fluctuate before the price of the Coinbase (COIN.US), Kraken and FTX markets. Therefore, it may hinder the SEC's approval of spot ETFs."
He added that the data also showed that more money was invested in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Bitcoin futures market. "The crypto market was initially dominated by exchanges such as Coinbase, and then by exchanges such as BitMEX and Binance. No one is setting new records or working hard to make breakthroughs, and these breakthroughs show that the market has changed." (Zhitong Finance)