Invesco Proposes Crypto Economy ETF

Planned offering comes as funds that would invest directly in digital assets await SEC approval.

article-image

Invesco CEO Marty Flanagan; Source: Chris Hamilton for Invesco

share

key takeaways

  • Invesco’s planned fund would compete against several funds including Bitwise’s latest fund, largest blockchain ETF by Amplify Investments
  • Product a way to potentially get to market faster as regulators mull growing number of crypto products in registration

Invesco has filed to launch an ETF that will invest primarily in companies entrenched in the crypto space, as well as up to 10% in bitcoin futures.

The Atlanta-based $1.5 trillion asset manager revealed plans to launch the Invesco Galaxy Crypto Economy ETF, according to an SEC disclosure filed on June 9. The filing did not list a ticker or expense ratio for the proposed offering.

The planned fund would seek to track the Alerian Galaxy Global Cryptocurrency-Focused Blockchain Index, the preliminary prospectus states, investing at least 80% of its total assets in securities within the benchmark.

An Invesco spokesperson told Blockworks that the company could not comment on the news. “Per SEC regulations we cannot comment on products in registration,” they said.

SEC waiting game

Though the proposed Invesco product would not invest directly in cryptocurrencies, it comes as other ETFs looking to do so await approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

SkyBridge and First Trust filed for a bitcoin ETF in March, while others such as WisdomTree Investments, NYDIG and VanEck also have products in registration. The SEC in April postponed its decision to rule on VanEck’s bitcoin ETF proposal until June.

The batch of planned US ETFs sit in waiting after Canada’s first bitcoin ETF, launched by Purpose Investments in February, grew to $1 billion after about a month on the market.

James Seyffart, an ETF research analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, told Blockworks that Invesco likely does not believe the SEC will greenlight a crypto ETF anytime soon, adding that such a fund is not in the fund manager’s wheelhouse.

“They have plenty of futures based and equities based ETFs and likely have clients looking for some sort of access to the crypto market or crypto economy,” Seyffart said. “Launching a fund like this allows them to give that access to clients while staying within their area of expertise.”

The index the Invesco fund is set to track comprises stocks of digital asset companies, cryptocurrency futures, and exchange-traded products and private investment trusts traded over-the-counter that are linked to cryptocurrencies, the filing notes. 

The digital asset companies include cryptocurrency miners, those involved in facilitating the buying, selling and transfer of crypto assets and businesses that report cryptocurrency assets on their balance sheet. This equity component of the index is allocated an 85% weight. The bitcoin futures and exchange-traded products portions account for 10% and 5% of the index, respectively. 

Increasing demand for direct-access ETFs

Some investors may not like the volatility they are seeing in crypto assets, Seyffart explained, and so might opt for this sort of fund instead of the ones awaiting approval. He added that many see parallels with gold, and that there are billions of dollars in gold ETFs as well as gold miners ETFs. 

“There are use cases for each, but from where I sit the larger demand is for ETFs that hold actual crypto assets,” Seyffart said. “In the meantime, there may be some people buying products like this because there aren’t ETFs with direct access yet.”

The Invesco fund is similar to several ETFs already on the US market, which Seyffart noted have been successful at gathering assets. The largest such offering is Amplify Investments’ Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK), which has grown to $1.1 billion in assets under management since launching in January 2018.

Most recently, Bitwise, a company looking to launch a bitcoin ETF, launched its Crypto Industry Innovators ETF (BITQ) last month. BITQ, the first ETF the SEC has approved that includes “crypto” in its name, holds 30 stocks of high-growth and profitable crypto companies, such as Coinbase, Microstrategy, Galaxy Digital, Riot Blockchain and Voyager Digital.

“All of these are ways to provide some level of access until the SEC approves a Bitcoin ETF,” Seyffart said.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template Presentation.jpg

Research

The Solana validator landscape has changed drastically over the past year. The chain now has 1,332 active validators with 380.9 million SOL staked (63.9% of supply) as of February 2025. Validator revenue had diversified beyond inflationary rewards (still making up 55%) to include Jito tips (30%), priority fees (24%), and base fees (<1%), in January, especially with the increased activity on Solana. Since then, issuance has become dominant again (76%), while Jito tips (14%), priority fees (9%), and base fees (less than 1%) have reduced in share of February 2025. There has been a strong shift towards non-inflationary revenue sources, which have become more central to validator economics as priority fees and off-chain blockspace auctions gain traction. Client diversity has also improved drastically, with implementations such as Agave, Jito-Solana, and Frankendancer already in use, and upcoming clients like Firedancer and Sig expected to further strengthen resilience and reduce reliance on a single codebase.

article-image

BWR analyst Carlos Gonzalez Campo explains the consequences of SOL inflation and transfers lost to “leaky buckets”

article-image

Empire co-host Santiago Santos makes the case that memecoins have actually helped push infra forward…just not in the way you think

article-image

A16z Crypto lists seven buckets for tokens and recommendations for how to regulate them, in a filing submitted to the SEC

article-image

New model aims to resolve trading inefficiencies with a single execution layer and market maker changes

article-image

Investors navigating BTC face short-term unpredictability, influence from other markets

article-image

The GENIUS Act aims to establish regulatory guidelines for stablecoins