ProShares to launch U.S. Bitcoin-linked ETF

Yahoo Finance's Akiko Fujita and Zack Guzman discuss Bitcoin's price surge ahead of ProShares' Bitcoin futures ETF NYSE debut.

Video transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: We are seeing Bitcoin moving higher right now in the session. It is up $62,000 is what we're looking at right now. She mentioned the Bitcoin futures ETF from ProShares set to begin trading tomorrow. Certainly something that you could argue has almost been a decade coming in terms of ETFs, but a little different than what purists were thinking. Is that the right way to frame it, Zack, that we're still looking at Bitcoin futures and not an ETF that directly trades on the cryptocurrency?

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, I mean, that's what this is. It's all linked to futures traded on the CME. And, you know, when we look at maybe how people should be thinking about it, it's a question of how much money is going to be coming in terms of inflows. I mean, I was more in the camp that it's less exciting than seeing things attached to [INAUDIBLE] Bitcoin. And that's what a lot of purists wanted, to your point, Akiko.

But obviously, the SEC likely to take baby steps here. And that's why we saw Gary Gensler so much more enthused by the idea of a futures attached ETF. And that's what we're getting here tomorrow when it starts trading. The question becomes how excited the market's going to be around something like this. And of course, part of the reason why purists aren't as jazzed is because it's going to come with fees for the investor turning to this rather than owning Bitcoin.

My point remains. It's worth doing the homework to own Bitcoin outright to learn a little bit more about how the technology works. That opens you up to owning Ether. It opens you up to owning other altcoins out there, which are working on solving real world problems. Owning an ETF attached to futures gets you some attachment, but not completely the same thing as owning Bitcoin outright. And Akiko, when we talk about how big of a boost this is going to be, it's been the debate back and forth whether or not this is already baked in, as we approach the all-time high on Bitcoin around 65,000.

But you have Fundstrat out there saying, look, the number to watch is going to be how much the inflows in the first days of trading are going to be. Their thought is-- and we've heard that $100,000 price target before-- potentially, if the inflows are stronger than what we saw when the QQQ rate, the NASDAQ ETF back in the day, what, in the early 2000s, if you see anything attached to that, they're saying we're going to see more inflows on this ETF than what we saw on QQQ, which is interesting because, you know, this does open the door for people who may have not wanted to do the homework to buy Bitcoin outright. They say that could push it up till you get this. We're talking now at a price target potentially of $168,000 for Bitcoin. Not saying outright that that's what they're going to see--

AKIKO FUJITA: 168,000.

ZACK GUZMAN: But 168,000 now being floated by Fundstrat.

AKIKO FUJITA: I was just going to follow up with that, Zack, and say, well, I guess we're not so far off from that call that we had earlier in the spring from many guests who said $100,000. But we're talking about that number surpassing that. So we'll be watching that closely. Of course, we're going to have Simeon Hyman on from ProShares tomorrow on the big debut. He's going to be joining us on this show, so you're certainly going to want to watch that.