Barry Silbert, CEO of Digital Currency Group, urged his followers to “stay tuned” in response to a tweet about potentially converting its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into a physically-backed exchange-traded fund.

stay tuned

— Barry Silbert (@BarrySilbert) October 17, 2021

ProShares’s Bitcoin futures ETF is set to start trading on Monday after it was greenlit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this week.  

However, the regulator has so far shot down all the proposals to launch an ETF that will not track the price of Bitcoin directly due to concerns about investor protection. Instead, investors will have exposure to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s futures contracts.  

Joe Orsini, director of research at Eaglebrook Advisors, has outlined some risks associated with a futures-based ETF in his recent thread, claiming that it will be applicable for intra-day trading instead of long-term investing.

Futures-based #bitcoin ETFs? Buyer Beware.

A thread on contango, using USO ETF (a futures-based ETF on crude oil) to compare performance of Spot WTI Crude, 1st-month Crude Futures, and a futures-based ETF.

1/n pic.twitter.com/04Rv1m7NKB

— Joe Orsini, CFA (@JoeOrsini_) October 15, 2021

Last month, Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein opined that approving a futures-based ETF before a spot-based one would be a “short-sighted” decision.

According to a Thursday report by CNBC, the company is very close to filing with the SEC in order to convert GBTC into a spot-based ETF.

As reported by U.Today, Grayscale hired ex-Alerian CEO David LaValle to work on such a plan this September.

The leading cryptocurrency asset manager confirmed that it was intending to convert its Bitcoin trust into an ETF in early April.