ETFs are not exactly the most exhilarating class of assets. They’re the safe type of investment that your dad or financial planner tells you to load up on—why bet on individual stocks when you can just own a slice of an entire sector, or even better, the S&P 500? For the topsy-turvy world of crypto, however, ETFs have been the most jolting spark of life since the NFT craze of 2021.
As a brief recap, the crypto industry has been trying to trojan horse Bitcoin into traditional finance through ETFs since 2013, when the Winklevoss twins of Social Network fame first applied with the SEC to create an exchange-tradeable asset that would hold and track underlying Bitcoin. They were rejected, as was every other applicant, until last year, when the crypto firm Grayscale won a crucial court case in favor of the product. The SEC finally relented in January, sending crypto prices soaring. The initial class of 11 Bitcoin ETFs was among the most successful of all time, with BlackRock and Fidelity’s offerings leading the charge. (The Winklevii never got their ETF, though their firm Gemini is serving as a custodian for one.)
