ProShares Metaverse ETF Begins Trading

The fund group’s follow-up to its bitcoin futures ETF joins three other products in the segment

article-image

Blockworks exclusive art by axel rangel

share

key takeaways

  • The fund’s largest competitor is Roundhill Investments’ Metaverse ETF (METV), which launched last June and has more than $700 million in assets
  • Fund groups First Trust, Fidelity Investments and Global X have filed for similar offerings

ProShares, the asset manager that launched the first bitcoin futures ETF in the US, now has a metaverse ETF as more issuers seek to enter the market segment.

The company, which debuted its Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) in October, had first revealed plans for its metaverse-focused offering in December. 

The ProShares Metaverse ETF (VERS) has begun trading on the NYSE Arca, the company announced Thursday. The fund carries an expense ratio of 58 basis points.

“The metaverse may be as impactful on society as the arrival of the internet or the mobile phone, and the investment opportunity has the potential to be just as compelling,” ProShares CEO Michael Sapir said in a statement.

The ETF tracks the Solactive Metaverse Theme Index, which comprises 40 companies. It includes device makers and data processors, as well as social media and gaming platforms.

Apple is the ETF’s top holding, at about 8%, followed by Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) and NVIDIA.

“In the not-too-distant future, anything from a work meeting to time with family could take place in the metaverse, and VERS provides investors an easy way to access the potential growth,” said Scott Helfstein, ProShares’ executive director of thematic investing.

VERS joins Roundhill Investments’ Metaverse ETF (METV); Exchange Traded Concepts’ Fount Metaverse ETF (MTVR); and Subversive Capital’s Metaverse ETF (PUNK). The latter offering, unlike its competitors, includes a short position to Facebook parent company Meta Platforms.

METV launched last June and has grown to $726 million in assets, according to Roundhill’s website. MTVR and PUNK, which launched in October and January, respectively, have roughly $10 million in combined assets.

Lara Crigger, managing editor of ETF Trends and ETF Database, said in January the metaverse is “a little thin on the ground when it comes to investability.”

The Roundhill fund has returned -30% year to date, as of March 15, according to FactSet data.

More metaverse ETFs are on the way. Fund groups First Trust, Fidelity Investments and Global X have all filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch funds focused on the space.

ProShares manages roughly $60 billion in assets across about 140 ETFs in the US, according to ETF.com data.

Since BITO’s October launch, during which it gathered about $1 billion in its first day of trading, the fund’s inflows have stalled.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

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.

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.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Unlocked by Template (7).png

Research

Union’s improvements upon Tendermint consensus through CometBLS, coupled with ZK proving through Galois, allow for a broadly scalable, cost efficient, and low latency IBC implementation that is feasibly scalable across every existing blockchain, virtual machine and runtime. The implementation offers modular crosschain interoperability without the need for trusted intermediaries.  

article-image

Kraken’s chief security officer Nick Percoco said the exchange turned the tables on a North Korean hacker

article-image

Or is it approximately the least cypherpunk thing we could do?

article-image

Over 20% of SOL-USD swap volume goes through SolFi

article-image

CEO Vlad Tenev calls expected clarity on listing crypto asset securities “a big opportunity”

article-image

Big Tech pulled US indexes back into the green Thursday, as investors waited for two more Mag 7 first-quarter reports after the bell

article-image

Charts and takeaways from Tuesday’s jobs report and Wednesday’s GDP print, as the economy digests the tariff war