A financial services giant with nearly $90 billion in assets under its management is shutting down its futures Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) just days after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved a slew of spot market BTC ETFs.
According to a new press release, New York-based investment management firm VanEck says that it plans to close and liquidate the VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF, an exchange-traded product listed on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE).
“As the sponsor of VanEck ETFs, VanEck continuously monitors and 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 says that the futures ETF will be closed on January 30th while it’s scheduled to be liquidated on February 6th. Investors who continue to hold shares receive a proportional amount of cash in their accounts.
Last week, the SEC made the highly anticipated decision to approve spot market BTC ETFs after years of rejecting them, creating the first-ever conduit between the digital assets industry and Wall Street. Marquee firms that got their bids approved include VanEck, BlackRock, Fidelity, ARK Invest, and Franklin Templeton.
Spot market BTC ETFs allow investors to gain exposure to the crypto king without having to actually purchase the digital asset itself.
Earlier this year, VanEck pledged that if the regulatory agency were to approve its application for a spot BTC ETF, it would donate some of its profits to support Bitcoin Core developers for at least 10 years.
Bitcoin is trading for $42,267 at time of writing, a 2.1% increase during the last 24 hours.
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