Is BTFD The Ultimate Bitcoin ETF Ticker? Valkyrie Is About To Find Out

A popular rally cry for stocks and cryptocurrencies is set to be the ticker symbol for a Bitcoin BTC/USD ETF launching soon. Could this unique ticker help set this ETF apart from others and gain interest from retail traders?

What Happened: Bitcoin ETFs are set to make their debut with the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF BITO hitting the market Tuesday. Many other Bitcoin ETFs could hit the public market soon with many of them waiting out the SEC’s decision to not allow them for years.

The Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy is an ETF that “seeks to provide investors with capital appreciation” through exposure to Bitcoin. The ETF originally filed to list with the ticker BTF, but has since changed its ticker to BTFD.

“OMG, it looks like Valkyrie changed their ticker to $BTFD, they must have listened to Twitter bc that was like all over my replies every time we talked about $BTF. Talk about an instant classic,” Bloomberg ETF Senior Analyst Eric Balchunas tweeted.

The ETF shows a date to list as Oct. 20, which could make it the second Bitcoin ETF to hit the market this week.

Related Link: It Looks Like The First Bitcoin Future ETF Has A Ticker, Likley To Hit Markets Next Week 

Why It’s Important: The slogan “buy the dip” has been a rallying cry for popular retail investor stocks and cryptocurrencies. The quote refers to buying more shares or coins in an asset as it drops in price. In some cases, the phrase became “buy the f***ing dip."

With the ticker BTFD, Valkyrie could be trying to appeal more broadly to the retail investor crowd and could win them over.

“We saw the overwhelming feedback on social media to our initial ticker,” Valkyrie Funds CEO Leah Wald told Bloomberg in an email. The company decided to change the ticker to appeal more broadly to the crypto community, according to Wald.

Wald told Bloomberg the BTFD ticker has been approved by Nasdaq.

What's Next: There are going to be a handful of Bitcoin ETFs launching in October and even more down the road. Some important factors for ETFs to distance themselves from competitors include performance, expense ratios, tickers and marketing.

With the ETFs likely to have similar performance based on the price of Bitcoin, a ticker and marketing could be the key differentiating factors and go a long way to help with first-mover advantage of the initial Bitcoin ETFs.

A popular Bitcoin investing option, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust GBTC, plans to turn itself into an ETF.

Photo: Karolina Grabowska from Pexels