Bitwise seeks approval for ETF tracking companies holding over 1,000 BTC

Bitwise has filed an application to list and trade shares of an exchange-traded fund that will track companies holding significant amounts of Bitcoin as part of their treasury.

The asset management firm’s regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Dec. 26 outlines the ‘Bitcoin Standard Corporations ETF’ as a fund that will invest in companies with more than 1000 BTC in treasury reserves.

Per the SEC filing, the new Bitcoin ETF targets the securities of publicly traded companies in the Bitwise Securities Index.

Bitwise Bitcoin Standard Corporations ETF

The fund will include companies with at least $100 million in market cap and an average of $1 million in daily liquidity.

Bitwise’s “Bitcoin standard” exchange-traded fund will feature weighting based on the overall value of BTC held rather than the size of the company’s market cap.

In this case, the ETF’s weighting for Marathon Digital Holdings will be higher than that of Tesla. This is because the Bitcoin mining firm Marathon Digital’s holdings of more than 44,000 BTC is greater than Tesla’s total of 9,720 BTC.

Despite this, the ETF will not feature a stock weighting of more than 25% for any of the components.

Bitwise says the goal is to ensure diversification as well as avoid overexposing investors to any one BTC holding company.

“The Index selects for inclusion each eligible security that complies with the size, liquidity and free float requirements. Each security selected for inclusion is then assigned weight based upon the market value of its bitcoin holdings, subject to certain diversification requirements, including that single constituents are capped at a maximum weight of 25% at each Index rebalance, with any excess weight being reallocated to other constituents on an equal-weighted basis,” the SEC filing reads in part.

Bitcoin treasuries traction

Bitwise’s latest filing for a BTC ETF comes as the global trend in the number of public companies adopting the flagship asset as treasury strategy picks momentum.

In recent months, inspired by the massive gains in BTC price and what MicroStrategy has achieved, multiple publicly listed companies have announced their adoption plans.

The adoption cuts across tech, pharmaceuticals, sports, computing, and video sharing.

Rumble, Interactive Strength, Hoth Therapeutics, Anixa Biosciences, and Nano Labs are among those to take this initiative and announce notable Bitcoin purchases.

KULR Technology Group announced its Bitcoin treasury strategy on Dec. 26, revealing a 217.18 BTC purchase worth $21 million.

According to data from Bitcoin Treasuries, there are currently about 73 public companies in a total of 149 entities holding BTC.

While ETFs and other funds lead with nearly 1.3 million BTC in treasuries, public companies make the second largest holders with over 587.6k BTC. MicroStrategy, the world’s largest corporate holder of BTC, accounts for most of these with 444,262 BTC after its latest purchase. 

Meanwhile, governments and private companies are the third and fourth largest with over 513k and 408k BTC respectively.

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