In a company blog post, Bitwise announced that it was filing for its new Bitwise HOLD 10 Cryptocurrency Index Fund that’s to be tied to the top 10 cryptocurrencies.
Bitwise is currently in a race of sorts with other companies who have filed with the SEC to launch the first ETF for cryptocurrency. The SEC hasn’t yet approved a bitcoin or cryptocurrency ETF, but according to CNBC the rumours that it might caused Bitcoin prices to increase.
ETFs track a group of assets, but trade like stocks. Currently other asset managers like VanEck, SolidX and Gemini have filed for cryptocurrency ETFs, but only tied to Bitcoin. Bitwise is the first to file for an ETF that would track multiple assets.
The performance of the index isn’t tied to one coin and that’s what makes the index valuable said Hunter Horsley, Bitwise’s co-founder and CEO, to Forbes. “What things will look like five or ten years from now is pretty unclear. The HOLD 10 index offers broad exposure, it updates monthly and changes to adapt to the market,” he said.
The company says that the aim of the fund is to track the returns of the already-existing Bitwise’s HOLD 10 Index. The HOLD 10 Index is made up of Bitcoin, Ether (Ethereum), Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Lumens (Stellar), Litecoin, Zcash, Dash, Monero, and Ethereum Classic.
“We know that the current crypto ETF filings have generated a great deal of discussion and analysis within the SEC about this emerging asset class, and the SEC and its staff, to their credit, have asked for public comment on a wide range of issues relating to these products,” said Bitwise’s global head of exchange-traded products, John Hyland, in the blog post. “We expect the staff of the SEC has had ongoing discussions with the investment firms making the crypto filings to date, and we look forward to having our own discussions with the SEC about the nature of our proposed offering.”
