Asset management firm Franklin Templeton has filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). The filing, made on September 12, seeks SEC approval for a spot Bitcoin ETF, following a series of recent developments in the cryptocurrency ETF space.
This filing comes after the SEC postponed decisions on several spot Bitcoin ETF applications from firms like WisdomTree, Valkyrie, Fidelity, VanEck, Bitwise, and Invesco at the end of August. Additionally, a court ruling at the end of August compelled the SEC to consider Grayscale's application to convert its Bitcoin futures ETFs into spot ETFs.
Franklin Templeton's proposed fund will be structured as a trust, with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase serving as the custodian for Bitcoin (BTC) holdings. BNY Mellon will be responsible for custodianship and administration of cash assets. The fund's shares are intended to be traded on the Cboe BZX Exchange.
The SEC's next deadline to make a decision on Franklin Templeton's filing is set for October 16. In its application, the asset manager acknowledged the regulatory uncertainty surrounding digital asset markets in the United States, emphasizing that legislative adverse or regulatory developments could have a substantial impact on the value of Bitcoin and related assets.
CF Benchmarks, a regulated digital asset index provider based in the UK, will provide daily valuations for the proposed ETF based on data from several major cryptocurrency exchanges, including Coinbase, Bitstamp, iBit, Kraken, Gemini, and LMAX Digital, with transaction data being indexed at five-minute intervals. Franklin Templeton currently manages assets worth $1.5 trillion, and Bitcoin's price has shown a more than 4% increase at the time of this writing.
