Research Weekly - The Race for Crypto ETFs Keeps Expanding

The newly filed funds differ from the existing spot bitcoin applications in the works in several key areas. Bitcoin futures ETFs have been available since November 2021, with the largest being the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) with $1.1B in AUM, but an ether futures ETF has never been approved in the US. The ’40 Act is the same avenue bitcoin futures ETFs used in 2021, and their approval process is entirely different than ’33 Act funds. Daily liquid '40 Act funds launched by a registrant that already has other effective funds go through a 75-day notice period under Rule 485(a), while ’33 Act Funds go through a multi-stage review process lasting up to 240 days in total. As we said, we don’t know the likelihood of these new futures-based ETFs or the spot ETFs filed in June being approved.