Tesla Bull Cathie Wood Seeks To Extend Ark Brand To Bitcoin Futures ETF

Tesla Inc TSLA bull Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has plans to extend the “Ark” brand to Bitcoin BTC/USD futures contracts trading on commodity exchanges, a Wednesday filing made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission revealed.

What Happened: The ARK 21Shares Bitcoin Futures Strategy ETF with the ticker ARKA was proposed in the filing made by Alpha Architect, a white label issuer of exchange-traded funds or ETFs. Switzerland-based 21 Shares AG is listed as a sub-adviser.

ARKA, an actively managed ETF seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing in exchange-traded BTC futures traded on commodity exchanges such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, as per the filing.

See Also: How To Buy Bitcoin (BTC)

The fund would not invest directly in BTC or other digital assets. 

Why It Matters: In June, Ark Invest lent its name to ARK 21 Shares Bitcoin ETF, which tracks BTC as measured by the S&P Bitcoin Index.

Bloomberg Intelligence’s Eric Balchunas said on the development that “it’s a no brainer for Ark because they will likely be able to instantly seed it with about half a billion that they currently have in [Grayscale Bitcoin Trust] GBTC.”

“Ark also has a strong base of younger investors who probably would use this as well. Closest thing to a surefire hit as you’ll see,” said Balchunas.

Wood is on the board of Amun Holdings Ltd, the operator of 21Shares, and personally invested in the firm, as per Bloomberg.

The SEC delayed its decision on the approval of multiple BTC ETFs this month — extending its decision deadline by 45 days — citing the need for additional time to decide the applications.

Bitcoin has been buzzing on the possible approval of ETFs by the SEC and has gained 5.84% so far this week. Over 24 hours, BTC rose 3.65% to $58,286.06 at press time.

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