A third blockchain exchange traded fund debuted on Thursday. The first two are already finding quick success. The Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (NYSEARCA: BLOK) and the Reality Shares Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF (NASDAQ: BLCN) already have more than $250 million in assets under management combined.
It took BLOK and BLCN less than two weeks of trading to reached that combined milestone. A blockchain is a decentralized database shared across all users that facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking assets across a business network. This foundational technology is expected to pave the way for significant disruptions across many industries.
BLOK utilizes an actively-managed approach to investing in the fast developing world of blockchain-based technology, allowing the fund’s portfolio managers to respond in real-time to valuations, company fundamentals and announcements that may impact the blockchain marketplace.
BLCN tracks the Reality Shares Nasdaq Blockchain Economy Index, according to a SEC exemptive relief filing. The underlying index includes companies that are committing material resources to developing, researching, supporting, innovating or utilizing blockchain technology for their proprietary use or for use by others.
Entering Friday’s trading session, BLOK had nearly $165 million in assets under management while investors had poured more than $86 million into the passively managed BLCN.
“Investors poured about $240 million into two blockchain-focused ETFs since their launch last week, according to the latest available data from FactSet. Blockchain is the technology behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,” reports CNBC. “The surge of interest came even as bitcoin, the largest digital currency by market capitalization, stagnated in price in the last week. Bitcoin has fallen nearly 7 percent in the last week to about $10,800 Friday on Coinbase, the leading U.S. exchange for major cryptocurrencies.”
The First Trust Indxx Innovative Transaction & Process ETF (NASDAQ: LEGR) debuted on Thursday.
The new ETF tracks the Indxx Blockchain Index. That benchmark follows “companies across the globe that are either actively using, investing in, developing, or have products that are poised to benefit from a new technology known as blockchain. The index seeks to include only companies that have devoted material resources to the use of blockchain technologies,” according to a statement.
“Digital currency bitcoin leaped 2,000 percent in the 12 months leading up to mid-December, amid a surge of interest in cryptocurrencies that sent their total market value above $800 billion earlier this month, according to CoinMarketCap,” according to CNBC.