Crypto ETF issuer Bitwise moving into Europe via acquisition

Crypto fund manager Bitwise is expanding to a new continent through an acquisition of London-based ETC Group, the company said Monday. 

ETC Group’s nine European-listed, physically backed crypto ETPs — including offerings focused on bitcoin, Ethereum staking, solana and XRP — are set to be rebranded to include the Bitwise name in the coming months. 

Bringing ETC Groups’ more than $1 billion of assets under management under Bitwise raises the acquiring firm’s asset base to about $4.5 billion. 

“This acquisition allows us to serve European investors, to offer clients global insight, and to expand the product suite with innovative ETPs,” Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsely said in a statement.

The San Francisco-based issuer was among the issuers that launched the first US spot bitcoin ETFs in January. It followed that up by bringing, alongside others, a spot ether product to the American market last month. 

Read more: The biggest takeaways from ETH ETFs’ opening week in the US

Bitwise has beaten out most other smaller, crypto-focused fund managers in terms of gathering net inflows for these funds. The Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) ranks fourth in that category — behind BlackRock, Fidelity and a product by Ark Invest and 21Shares. Its Bitwise Ethereum ETF (BITW) trails only BlackRock and Fidelity. 

The company’s BTC and ETH ETFs have asset bases amounting to roughly $2.3 billion and $240 million, respectively. 

This move is not the first consolidation we’ve seen in the crypto fund space. 

Europe-focused CoinShares closed its acquisition of Valkyrie’s fund business in an effort to help it build a US presence. The firm gained roughly $530 million of assets under management across four funds. 

The completion of that deal came about two months after Valkyrie launched its spot bitcoin ETF on the Nasdaq.

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