Franklin Templeton, a global investment management giant overseeing $1.8 trillion in assets, has been approved to launch two new Bitcoin-focused ETFs, which will trade on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.
According to filings submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company has filed registration applications for two investment vehicles designed to systematically convert U.S. stock dividends into bitcoin exposure.
These two new products are named the Franklin US Equity Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF (FBEQ) and the Franklin US Innovation Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF (FIBT).
These two products differ from traditional Bitcoin ETFs. Rather than simply tracking the price of the top cryptocurrency, they aim to combine traditional stock investments with a Bitcoin dividend reinvestment strategy.
Specifically, these products will allocate 95% of funds to U.S. stocks and 5% to bitcoin-related assets.
These products do not reinvest stock dividends into additional shares; instead, they use the dividends to gradually increase exposure to Bitcoin over time.
These two investment vehicles will track indices compiled by VettaFi. FBEQ will track large-cap U.S. companies, while FIBT will track innovation-themed stocks.
Franklin Templeton expands its Bitcoin exposure
This latest announcement by the company is another step in Franklin Templeton’s ongoing expansion of its presence in the cryptocurrency sector.
This investment giant currently offers a spot Bitcoin investment product, the Franklin Bitcoin ETF (EZBC), which has attracted approximately $335 million in net inflows to date.
The key difference between these two newly launched ETFs is that they bring cryptocurrency exposure into traditional stock investment portfolios.