VanEck has launched the market's third Bitcoin Strategy ETF

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VanEck on Tuesday launched the VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BATS:XBTF), the market's third Bitcoin strategy fund.

• XBTF started trading as of 9:30 a.m. ET and witnessed just under 2M of shares changing hands in the first 30 minutes of trading. That's nowhere near thevolume of its competitor ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (NYSEARCA:BITO), which transacted nearly $290M worth of shares in just the first 20 minutes of its first trading day.

• The VanEck ETF will provide participants exposure to Bitcoin (BTC-USD) through the futures market. The exchange traded fund is actively managed and will achieve its investment objective by investing in standardized, cash-settled Bitcoin-futures contracts traded on commodity exchanges registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

• XBTF, just like BITO, will not invest in Bitcoin or other digital assets directly, as that has still not been approved by U.S. financial regulators.

• One unique differentiating factor that XBTF has over its competitor fund BITO is that it has a lower expense ratio of 0.65% vs. the 0.95% BITO comes with.

• Kyle DaCruz, director of digital assets product at VanEck, stated with regards to the launch that "cost and tax treatment are two essential considerations for investors, and we have made both front and center in the design of XBTF. Investors deserve lower cost, transparent, regulated bitcoin exposures, and we’re pleased to be leading that charge with the launch of XBTF and all of our ongoing efforts in the bitcoin and digital assets space.”

• Market participants who are unsure of Bitcoin0futures ETFs and how they will track the price of spot Bitcoin can look to the correlation between Bitcoin and BITO in this one-month chart.