Significant purchases on the day of the debut of the first US ETF linked to bitcoin. ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, which features ticker “BITO”, is up 3.4% to $ 41.34. The fund tracks not cryptocurrency directly but bitcoin futures. Bitcoin prices are also growing, traveling in the $ 62,800 area (Coindesk data), about $ 2,000 from the all-time highs reached last April. Bitcoin has recorded + 115% since the beginning of the year.
The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF “will open bitcoin exposure to a broad segment of investors who have a brokerage account and are comfortable buying stocks and ETFs, but don’t want to deal with the hassle and learning curve of opening another account with a cryptocurrency provider and create a bitcoin wallet or fear that these providers may be unregulated and subject to security risks, ”said ProShares CEO Michael L. Sapir.
In the prospectus of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF explicit reference is made to the “unique and substantial risks” of investing in bitcoin and how historically it has been subject to significant price volatility. “The value of an investment in the Fund could fall significantly without notice, even to zero. You should be prepared to lose your entire investment. The performance of bitcoin futures contracts and therefore the performance of the Fund can differ significantly from the performance of bitcoin ”, reads the prospectus registered with the SEC.