One of the more conservative trillion-dollar asset managers, T. Rowe Price, has surprised analysts after filing to list an actively managed crypto exchange-traded fund in the US.
T. Rowe’s S-1 registration statement to launch an Active Crypto ETF could shake up its largely mutual fund-focused offerings — an asset class that has bled tens of billions of dollars in outflows over the last month.
The filing submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday states the fund is expected to hold five to 15 cryptocurrencies that are eligible under the SEC’s generic listing standards, which include Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP).
President of NovaDius Wealth Management, Nate Geraci, referred to the filing as “left field” while suggesting that “legacy asset managers” like T. Rowe that missed out on the first crypto ETF wave are now rushing to find their market fit.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas similarly described the filing as a “SEMI-SHOCK,” noting that T. Rowe, a near $1.8 trillion asset manager, has focused heavily on mutual funds across its 87-year history.
“Did not expect it but I get it. There’s gonna be land rush for this space too.”
Weighting of assets won’t be purely based on market size
T. Rowe’s proposed fund seeks to beat the returns of the FTSE Crypto US Listed Index, with the weighting of assets to be based on fundamentals, valuation, and momentum, the filing states.
Among the other cryptocurrencies eligible for inclusion into T. Rowe’s fund is Cardano (ADA), Avalanche (AVAX), Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Hedera (HBAR), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Chainlink (LINK), Stellar (XLM) and Shiba Inu (SHIB).
T. Rowe’s Active Crypto ETF varies from a plethora of single-coin ETF applications in line for SEC approval.
Related: Hong Kong approves its first spot Solana ETF ahead of US
However, every one of those applications, including ones for LTC, SOL and XRP, has been held up by the US government shutdown, which is now in its 22nd day.
One of US President Donald Trump’s economic advisers, Kevin Hassett, said on Monday that the shutdown is “likely to end sometime this week.”
T. Rowe shrugged off crypto in 2021 but didn’t entirely rule it out
More than four and a half years ago, T. Rowe’s former CEO, William Stromberg, said that crypto was still in its “early days” when asked whether the asset manager would invest in crypto.
“It really truly is early, early days here so I would expect this to move at a good pace but take years to really unfold,” Stromberg said at the time.
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