The team at a Southeastern fund firm debuted their fourth ETP shortly before a publicly traded European asset manager acquired that fund firm.

Leah Wald Valkyrie Funds LLC CEO, Co-Founder

Last month, Leah Wald, CEO and co-founder of Nashville-based Valkyrie Investments, Inc., unveiled the launch of the Valkyrie Bitcoin Futures Leveraged Strategy ETF (BTFX on the Nasdaq). The launch came a few weeks before Saint Helier, Jersey-based CoinShares International Limited closed on March 12 on its planned acquisition Valkyrie Investments' investment advisory arm, Valkyrie Funds LLC [profile], as planned.

BTFX is a series of Valkyrie ETF Trust II, its inception date was February 21, and its expense ratio is 185 basis points. By yesterday (March 14), the fund had $38.296 million in AUM.

Valkyie Funds (which the CoinShares team plans to rebrand) serves as investment advisor to BTFX, and Vident Advisory LLC (dba Vident Asset Management) serves as subadvisor.

BTFX's investment strategy is designed to double the daily return of the S&P CME Bitcoin Fuures Index Excess Return Index, provided by S&P Dow Jones Indices, LLC. The new ETF's PM team includes three folks from Vident and two from Valkyrie: Bill Cannon, head of ETF portfolio management at Valkyrie; Ryan Dofflemeyer, senior portfolio manager at Vident; Steven McClurg, chief investment officer of Valkyrie; Austin Wen, PM at Vident; and Rafael Zayas, senior vice president and head of portfolio management and trading at Vident.

Wald describes BTFX's arrival as representing Valkyrie's "commitment to bringing investors innovative options for accessing Bitcoin and the digital asset ecosystem as a whole."

"With Bitcoin so much in the focus right now, traders and investors are looking at how they can use financial instruments to tap into this space, and as a leader in digital-asset-focused ETFs, we wanted to be sure we provide them with a great fund," Wald states.

BTFX's other providers include: SS&C's Alps Distributors, Inc.; as distributor; Chapman and Cutler LLP as counsel; Cohen & Company, Ltd. as independent accounting firm; U.S. Bancorp Fund Services LLC as administrator, dividend agent, fund accountant, and transfer agent; and U.S. Bank, N.A. as custodian and securities lending agent. 

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