ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood foresees that wirehouses will only show interest in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for the top digital assets, according to an interview with Peter McCormack at the Consensus 2024 crypto conference. Wood suggests that large broker-dealers are likely to embrace a spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETF and an Ethereum (ETH) ETF. While Bitcoin ETFs have already been launched, it now appears that ETH ETFs could follow suit later this year, with the potential for ETFs on other crypto assets to emerge soon after.
Wood believes that wirehouses will not accept more than a few ETFs, such as BTC, ETH, and possibly Solana, in order to expose their clients to this new asset class. However, private funds are expected to carefully sift through the multitude of options and identify around 20 or 30 viable choices. Due diligence will be crucial, given the abundance of questionable projects in the market.
In addition, Wood notes that since the approval of spot BTC ETFs (including one launched by ARK), wirehouses have been conducting thorough research on Bitcoin, indicating their intention to offer the product to their clients in the near future. The CEO reveals that ARK is now engaging with major platforms, commonly referred to as wirehouses, such as Morgan Stanley, UBS, Merrill Lynch, and Wells Fargo, who are actively investigating the nature of cryptocurrencies.
Although no wirehouse has yet listed any spot Bitcoin ETFs on their platforms, Wood believes that this is likely to change based on the types of questions they are asking. This suggests that wirehouses are becoming more open to the idea and may soon provide access to Bitcoin ETFs.