Valkyrie opens doors for Bitcoin Trust

The fund company Valkyrie Digital Assets has expanded the customer base for its Bitcoin Trust. Accredited investors can now also invest in the cryptocurrency.

The Valkyrie Bitcoin Trust’s investor pool has expanded. How Coindesk reported, accredited investors who are not Valkyrie customers can also invest in the fund since May 1st. Since then, CIO Steven McClurg has observed growing interest from the institutional side. In addition, there is also an increased willingness to invest on the part of small business owners such as dentists or car dealers who want to put excess cash into liquid assets in order to generate returns. Specifically, McClurg said:

Some of these companies are putting a significant portion of their surplus cash that they are not using for corporate purposes in Bitcoin through our trust. In many cases that is beyond 50 percent.

Steve McClurg, Valkyrie CIO

Valkyrie launches Polkadot Fund

Valkyrie Digital Assets also attracted media attention last Friday when the fund company launched its first Polkadot fund. In doing so, the financial services provider is following the example of Osprey Funds, which shortly before brought a similar product onto the market. At 2 percent, however, the management fees are slightly below those of the competition (2.5 percent). However, Osprey manages a little more with 10.6 million US dollars than Valkyrie with 10 million US dollars.

About the fund, says CIO McClurg:

Polkadot promises to be a faster network with lower gas fees that can support a wide variety of assets. It is more of a speculative bet on the future growth and usability of this protocol.

Steve McClurg, Valkyrie CIO

Coinbase acts as custodian for both the Valkyrie and the Osprey Fund.

All eyes on ETF application

Most investors, however, should be more interested in how Valkyrie’s ETF application is doing. At the end of January, the fund company had an application for approval of a possible financial product from the American company Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and was thus in a large group of aspirants who had addressed similar requests to the tax authorities. No decision has yet been made for Valkyrie. However, the developments of VanEck’s competitor product can be used as an indicator in the Bitcoin ETF case. Because the SEC has postponed the deadline for the decision on the VanEck application to June 17. The supervisory authority also has the option of extending the consultation window to up to 240 days. In the worst case scenario, VanEck may not receive a definitive answer until mid-November.

Something similar could happen with the Valkyrie application. In a statement from the SEC, a representative of the agency said regarding the VanEck ETFs:

The Securities and Exchange Commission deems it appropriate to set a longer period within which the proposed rule change should be addressed. This gives them enough time to review the proposed rule change and the comments received.

J. Matthew DeLesDernier, SEC Assistant Secretary.

It is unclear whether the review deadline for the Valkyrie application will also be postponed. In view of the approval of Bitcoin ETFs in other countries such as Brazil or Canada, the US stock exchange regulator is coming under increasing pressure. Hopes also rest on the new SEC boss Gary Gensler, who is considered a friend of the crypto space. The tax authorities will probably not get around a permit. However, the SEC shouldn’t take much more time for the examination.