According to a US Government SEC registration form, cryptocurrency index fund provider Bitwise Asset Management has applied to launch a new Bitcoin (available on Coinbase) Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) with the government body.

An ETF is a platform that tracks and trades an asset in the same way as stocks are traded on an exchange.

Will Bitwise manage to succeed where so many others are failing?

Bitwise Files Bitcoin (available on Coinbase) ETF

Bitwise’s proposal is for an ETF that tracks the value of Bitcoin (available on Coinbase) via the Bitwise Bitcoin (available on Coinbase) Total Return Index. This value is “calculated based on the prices of Bitcoin (available on Coinbase) that the Index Provider derives from Bitcoin (available on Coinbase) price transactions occurring on cryptocurrency exchanges.”

Basically, the index will take Bitcoin (available on Coinbase)’s value from a variety of crypto exchanges and will, therefore, offer a more accurate and precise market value for the coin.

This is one difference that Bitwise’s ETF proposal offers that previous ETF proposals—which have all been rejected—did not.

Another Vital Difference

Another difference on offer with Bitwise’s ETF proposal is that it would need “regulated third-party custodians to hold its physical Bitcoin (available on Coinbase).”

The company’s Global Head of ETFs, John Hyland, spoke of this in the press release:

“Having a regulated bank or trust company hold physical assets of a fund has been the standard under US fund regulation for the last 80 years, and we believe that is now possible with Bitcoin (available on Coinbase).”