Wall Street’s ETF Engine Revs Up After Ether ETF Debut

(Bloomberg) -- Barely 48 hours after US regulators approved Ether ETFs tracking the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, asset managers are rushing to crank out fresh products for the fledgling digital-asset class.

ProShares on Wednesday updated its prospectus for six funds that go long or short Bitcoin or Ether. Recently, Hashdex said it was looking to package both tokens into one investment box. Issuer VanEck, meanwhile, last month said it was hoping to debut an ETF based on Solana, the fifth-largest cryptocurrency, even as analysts say that the road to such a launch would be rocky. 

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All in all, the ETF product machine is looking to churn out a slew of new and ever-wonkier crypto instruments. For good reason: The US Securities and Exchange Commission may not be thrilled by the development, but Bitcoin funds now rank among the biggest ETFs getting inflows this year – mopping up even more cash than some big-name tech funds.

“ETFs have always been known to push the limits, so I think we will see issuers get creative with crypto filings,” said Roxanna Islam, head of sector and industry research at VettaFi. “That doesn’t mean there will necessarily be demand for these specific ETFs. But as more investors grow interested in traditional spot-crypto ETFs, I expect to see filings for crypto strategies follow and try to ride that wave of demand.”

Launches for new funds have become ever-more frequent in the booming $9.4 trillion US ETF space. Already so far this year, more than 330 new funds have started to trade, compared with around 500 seen all of last year. Still, funds can shut down just as quickly as they pop up in the saturated market — more than 100 ETFs have shuttered in 2024, a similar amount seen at this point last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The successful debuts this year for Bitcoin and Ether ETFs took many analysts by surprise as flows for the funds came in stronger than expected. Eight of nine Ether ETFs have seen money come in since their inceptions earlier this week, with products from both BlackRock and Bitwise each taking in more than $200 million. Still, all of them — and Ether, the underlying asset itself — sank on Thursday amid what some market-watchers had predicted could be a “sell-the-news” type of event. 

The Bitcoin funds, meanwhile, have raked in a net $17.5 billion year to date. 

The inauguration of these exchange-traded funds, which were years in the making, signal a softening in the US regulatory climate for the digital-asset sector, which is possibly emboldening asset managers to become more and more creative. 

“I’m sure the issuers will push the boundaries,” said Bloomberg Intelligence’s Athanasios Psarofagis. “They are always looking for creative ways to make money.”

Inverse and leveraged ETFs, which use derivatives to boost returns or pay out the opposite of some stock or index’s return, have soared in popularity over the past year. Retail investors especially have embraced the chance to double or triple their gains — at the risk of compounding their losses. 

Leveraged ETFs have amassed around $9 billion of inflows so far in 2024, on track to surpass last year’s $10.2 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence. A leveraged Bitcoin ETF, which trades under the ticker BITX, has taken in nearly $2 billion so far this year, amid gains of 50%. 

(Corrects to say ProShares updated its prospectus)

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