John Koudounis and his team are laying claim to what they say is a worldwide asset management first: the launch of an ETF that invests in bitcoin while offering investors 100-percent downside protection.

John S. Koudounis Calamos Investments President, CEO

This morning, Koudounis, president and CEO of Calamos Investments [profile], and Matt Kaufman, head of ETFs, unveiled the impending launch of the Calamos Bitcoin Structured Alt Protection ETF - January (CBOJ on the Cboe BZX). A spokesperson for Calamos confirms that the team expects to list the new, actively managed fund on the exchange on January 22 (which is two weeks from Wednesday and about one year after the debut of the first U.S. spot bitcoin ETPs).

Calamos Advisors LLC (which is based in the Chicago area, in Naperville, Illinois) will serve as investment advisor to CBOJ. The new ETF's team of portfolio managers will include: Jason Hill, senior vice president at Calamos; David O'Donohue, SVP; Eil Pars, SVP; Anthony Vecchiolla, vice president; and Jimmy Young, SVP.

CBOJ will come with an expense ratio of 69 basis points, the Calamos team reveals. The new fund's "reference asset" will be the CBOE Bitcoin US ETF Index, which tracks a basket of spot bitcoin ETPs in the U.S. The Calamos team is designing CBOJ to use OTC (over-the-counter) options and U.S. Treasuries to offer investors exposure to bitcoin, but with "100% downside protection if theld through the outcome period," which is January 22, 2025 through January 31, 2026.

"This is consistent with our history of groundbreaking innovations in risk management," Koudounis states.

The upcoming debut of CBOJ would be nine months after the beginning of the Calamos Structured Protection ETF series which now has about $500 million in AUM and includes 14 ETFs focused on popular stock indexes but with downside protection over one-year periods (including one ladded structured protection ETF). (That's out of $540 million across 19 total Calamos ETFs. Overall, Calamos had more than $40 billion in AUM as of December 31, 2024.)

Given the name, perhaps Calamos' new bitcoin structured protection ETF will be followed by other similar ETFs with different starting and ending months for their outcome periods (like February 2025 and February 2026).

Kaufman notes that bitcoin's "epic volatilty" has mean that "many investors have been hesitant to invest."

"Calamos seeks to meet advisor, institutional and investor demands for solutions that capture bitcoin's growth potential while mitigating the historically high volatility and drawdowns of this fast-growing and high performing asset," Kaufman states.

Per a recent filing, CBOJ's other service providers will include: Calamos Financial Services LLC (CFS) as distributor and principal underwriter; Ropes & Gray LLP as counsel; and State Street Bank and Trust Company as administrator, custodian, dividend paying agent, fund accounting agent, and transfer ageint. The filing does not identify who will serve as the planned ETF's independent accounting firm. 

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