It may have taken a lot of time for regulated crypto investment products to enter the mainstream, but Canada is making up for the lost time. After earlier this year, the country launched three Bitcoin ETFs, now the country has approved three new funds – only, this time, they are Ethereum ETFs.
These ETFs will also be available on Toronto’s stock exchange (TSX). The companies behind them are Evolve ETFs, Purpose Investments, and CI Global Asset Management. The first two already have Bitcoin ETFs trading on the TSX.
The official launch will take place on Tuesday, April 20th.
Meanwhile, in the US, people are still waiting for a Bitcoin ETF, with eight companies awaiting approval from the SEC.
Up until this point, the SEC has rejected all applications for one, claiming that the Bitcoin market can be easily manipulated even casting doubt if a “real” Bitcoin market really exists.
Since the regulators in Canada are more open-minded, the country has become a hotspot for crypto ETFs. Out of the three ETFs that were approved earlier this year, two broke records with their trading volumes – Purpose traded $80 million in its first hour, and Evolve raised $421 million in only two days.
Analysts believe that the Ethereum products are also going to be popular, as Bloomberg ETF research analyst James Seyffart said: “There are a lot of people who are anti-crypto ETF but there are a lot of benefits. ETFs allow people to invest in the cryptocurrency ecosystem while staying on the financial guardrails—the traditional financial ecosystem.”
“Ironically, some cryptos are trying to break that but no matter how you look at it, there are tens of trillions of dollars in these traditional financial ecosystems and if you want to get access to crypto, the easiest way to do it is investing in these funds,” he added.
“I think they will be a success because there is obviously a demand for these crypto-assets within the traditional financial ecosystem and the ETF is a much more efficient structure than the Closed-End funds and Trusts that currently trade in the US and Canada,” Seyffart concluded.
Today, Purpose announced its new product via a statement, saying that it plans to sell three classes of shares on TSX: Canadian dollar currency-hedged units (ETHH), Canadian dollar non-currency hedged units (ETHH.B), and US dollar units with ticker units (ETHH.U).
The founder and CEO of Purpose, Som Seif, declared: “While Bitcoin tends to get a lot of attention as it was the first major cryptocurrency, what Ether and the Ethereum ecosystem represent is one of the most exciting new technology visions today in society.”
All three companies claim that they’ve released the “world’s first” Ethereum ETF, but that is not really true, as Switzerland has two Ethereum ETFs, CoinShares Physical Ethereum and 21Shares. While it is true that they are referred to as being ETPs, they actually do pretty much the same thing that the ETFs are doing in Canada.
“I think we’re going to see a US Bitcoin ETF this year, for sure,” added Seyffart. “That’s my personal opinion and the consensus opinion right now.”