Bitcoin investment giant Grayscale debuts ETF in Europe

Crypto investment giant Grayscale is expanding operations by launching a new crypto-linked exchange-traded fund (ETF) in Europe.

Grayscale officially announced its first European ETF, called Grayscale Future of Finance UCITS ETF, on Monday. A spokesperson for Grayscale told Cointelegraph that the ETF will begin trading on Tuesday.

The new investment product is getting listings on major European stock exchanges, including the London Stock Exchange, Borsa Italiana as well as Deutsche Börse’s electronic trading platform Xetra. Listed under the ticker symbol GFOF, the ETF will also be passported for sale across Europe.

An exciting milestone: Announcing our first European ETF, Grayscale Future of Finance UCITS ETF — listing on London Stock Exchange (LSE), Borsa Italiana, and Deutsche Börse Xetra. https://t.co/kwmWSxvOiV

— Grayscale (@Grayscale) May 16, 2022

Launched in partnership with Bloomberg, GFOF UCITS ET tracks the performance of the Bloomberg Grayscale Future of Finance Index. Bloomberg and Grayscale jointly introduced the index in January 2022, aiming to track the digital economy, focusing on the three main directions of technology, finance and digital assets.

According to the announcement, the new ETF includes companies directly involved in cryptocurrency mining, energy management and other activities in the digital asset ecosystem. According to the official information about the fund, the ETF tracks firms like the crypto-friendly trading app Robinhood, PayPal, Block, Coinbase, Canaan and others.

“Through GFOF UCITS ETF, European investors now have the opportunity to receive exposure to the companies that are pivotal to the evolution of the global financial system,” Grayscale’s global head of ETFs David LaValle said.

Grayscale also collaborated with Europe’s white-label issuer HANetf to create the new investment product. The issuer is known for cooperating on blockchain ETFs with companies like ETC Group.

A spokesperson for Grayscale told Cointelegraph that the new ETF launch is an important milestone both for the company's growth and the digital asset ecosystem, stating:

"We believe that the most exciting thing about the digital economy is the fact that we’re still so early in its development [...] That’s the vision that drove the creation of GFOF, the opportunity to capture value from transformative companies that are, and will be, embracing or building the future of finance and our global digital economy.”

Grayscale is one of the world’s largest Bitcoin (BTC) investment companies, providing the Grayscale Bitcoin BTC Trust (GBTC) with $18.3 billion in assets under management. Amid massive market volatility, GBTC recorded a significant decline, trading at a nearly 31% discount on Friday.

The firm has been aggressively pushing its Bitcoin spot ETF, with CEO Michael Sonnenshein claiming that Grayscale was gearing up for a legal fight with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission if its ETF is denied. The firm reportedly tried to persuade the SEC that turning the biggest BTC fund into an ETF would unlock $8 billion for investors.

Related: Why the world needs a spot Bitcoin ETF in the US: 21Shares CEO explains

The news comes amid the increasing adoption of crypto and industry-related ETFs worldwide, with total assets invested in crypto ETFs hitting $16.3 billion in Q1 2022.

21Shares, a major crypto ETF issuer in Europe, recently expanded its investment offering with a layer-1 (L1) and decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure exchange-traded products (ETPs).

Listed on SIX Swiss Exchange on Thursday, the 21Shares Crypto Layer 1 ETP (LAY1) offers investors exposure to the five largest blockchains in the DeFi industry. The 21Shares DeFi 10 Infrastructure ETP (DEFI) will list on the same exchange on Wednesday.