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Key Takeaways
- Investment management firm VanEck is dissolving its futures-based bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
- While specific reasons for the liquidation of the ETF weren’t provided, VanEck has said performance, liquidity, assets under management (AUM), and investor interest are factors it considers for these types of decisions.
- VanEck’s new spot bitcoin ETF already has surpassed its futures-based offering in terms of total net assets.
Investment management firm VanEck is liquidating its bitcoin futures-based exchange-traded fund (ETF), the Bitcoin Strategy ETF ( XBTF ). This decision follows the launch of VanEck’s spot bitcoin ETF offering last week.
“Now that our spot bitcoin ETF has been approved, we are closing our ETF that invested in bitcoin futures,” VanEck posted on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
VanEck’s XBTF is scheduled to end trading on Jan. 30. The ETF held just over $53 million worth of bitcoin futures contracts at the time of the liquidation announcement. As a comparison, the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF ( BITO ), which is also a futures-based bitcoin ETF offering, has roughly $1.9 billion in assets, according to Morningstar.
The asset manager said that it “evaluates its ETF offerings across a number of factors, including performance, liquidity , assets under management, and investor interest, among others. The decision was made to liquidate the Fund based on an analysis of these factors and other operational considerations.”
VanEck’s spot bitcoin ETF , known as the VanEck Bitcoin Trust ( HODL ), quickly surpassed XBTF in terms of total net assets. That said, it is still one of the also-rans compared with the rest of the market, with around $80 million in assets as of Tuesday.
Despite signs that some investors are moving into spot bitcoin ETF offerings from Blackrock ( IBIT ) and Fidelity ( FBTC ), the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ( GBTC ) is still by far the largest bitcoin ETF offering in the world with roughly $26 billion in net assets.
The 10 spot bitcoin ETFs that currently exist in the U.S. hold roughly $28 billion worth of bitcoin, but some experts believe that number could rise to as much as $100 billion over time.