US fund managers are ramping up efforts to tap into the fever surrounding digital assets, and the latest planned bitcoin products could deliver some head-turning and stomach-churning price movements if they come to market. The new idea is to build "leveraged" and "inverse" funds that would rise - or fall - twice as fast as the price of bitcoin on a given day.
Direxion Asset Management LLC plans to list such products on Intercontinental Exchange Inc's NYSE Arca exchange if US securities regulators give the nod, according to a filing by the exchange this week. In the filing, the exchange said the listing "will enhance competition among market participants, to the benefit of investors and the marketplace."
Bitcoin is a virtual asset that can be used to move money around the world quickly and with relative anonymity, without the need for a central authority, such as a bank or government. Bitcoin is one of the wildest trades in the market today, delivering sharp gains and losses that defy explanation. Trading has been expensive and difficult, with brokerages offering limited access and specialist websites like Coinbase reporting regular outages. Top voices on markets from economist Robert Shiller to JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon have warned people off buying bitcoin. Yet asset managers have been racing to design more than 10 proposals for bitcoin funds that are currently before US regulators.
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