Spot Bitcoin ETFs Are Coming. Beware the Risk.
Crypto cheerleader Mike Novogratz urged investors to run the numbers on the digital currency to prove its attractiveness. They don’t back him up.
It’s not all fun and games.
Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg
Last month, BlackRock Inc., the world’s biggest money manager, asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to approve a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund — a fund that would invest in the digital currency directly rather than through futures markets. BlackRock joins tens of other smaller ETF providers with the same request, so far without success. But with BlackRock’s heft behind growing demands for a spot Bitcoin fund, it’s only a matter of time before the SEC relents.
And it should. A spot ETF would allow investors to buy, sell and hold Bitcoin more easily, cheaply and securely than they can today. In a crypto industry awash with scams, regulatory oversight would also give investors and money managers confidence that they’re buying a bona fide financial product, particularly if it has BlackRock’s name on it.