There’s still quite a ways to go before cryptocurrency is as commonplace as stocks and bonds among investors, but a big hurdle was vaulted Wednesday for the online legal tender.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gave their approval to nearly a dozen bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
The purpose of these funds is to track bitcoin prices and will make it possible for people to invest in bitcoin without actually owning any cryptocurrency of their own.
“Today is a monumental day in the history of digital assets,” said Samir Kerbage, chief investment officer at a bitcoin ETF issuer called Hashdex, in a statement quoted in The Wall Street Journal.
On the first day under the new approvals, cryptocurrency traded above $47,000, a $30.000 increase over the start of 2023.
The new ETFs will be listed on Nasdaq, the New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Board Options Exchange, according to Reuters.