There couldn’t have been a worse day to launch a blockchain-themed exchange traded fund (ETF), with bitcoin down 50% from its highs a month earlier. As luck would have it, two such ETFs began trading on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq today.
The funds are the Reality Shares Nasdaq Blockchain Economy Index, which trades as BLCN; and the Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETC, which trades as BLOK. Both funds assemble a basket of stocks from companies that they say offer exposure to blockchain technology’s development. The Reality Shares index operates like a traditional ETF, allowing you to buy a basket of funds cheaply, while the Amplify vehicle is a slightly more exotic actively managed ETF, meaning a manager manually reshuffles its components.
Here’s what the Reality Shares fund believes are the stocks with the most blockchain exposure on the market:
This is what Amplify thinks are the stocks with the most blockchain tech exposure:
Neither fund has tanked. The BLOK fund is largely unchanged while the Reality Shares fund is up 0.3%. These vehicles may yet prove useful for investors who are long blockchain tech but can’t stomach cryptoassets’ wild volatility.