SEC approves 9 more WisdomTree ‘blockchain-enabled’ funds

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has given the green light to nine more blockchain-enabled funds from $82 billion manager WisdomTree.

None of these funds track crypto assets themselves, but the firm uses the Ethereum and Stellar blockchains to keep a secondary record of share ownership, making them blockchain-enabled, or “digital funds” as WidsomTree describes them.

The firm announced the SEC’s approval on December 14, outlining that the nine digital funds offer exposure to a variety of asset classes such as equities, commodities and floating rate stocks. The funds are expected to launch via the WisdomTree Prime mobile app in the first quarter of 2023.

“We believe that blockchain-enabled finance has the potential to improve the investor experience through improved liquidity, transparency and standardization, which we aim to achieve over time,” said Will Peck, WisdomTree’s head of digital assets.

The latest SEC approval comes three months after it approved the firm’s first digital fund, the WisdomTree Short-Term Treasury Digital Fund (WTSYX).

In a Sept. 26 blog post, Peck emphasized that WisdomTree is looking to create a greater investor experience via digital funds and blockchain technology, particularly in relation to trading and transaction settlement.

“To give some examples […] it is noteworthy that some blockchains can provide near-instant settlement settlement on a peer-to-peer basis on a 24/7/365 basis. Blockchains can allow for atomic settlement (where software ensures that assets are exchanged in settlement) as opposed to other potentially riskier settlement processes, such as delivery vs. payment (DvP),” he wrote.

As of December 14, WisdomTree claims to have around $82 billion worth of assets under management across its listed funds in the US and Europe.

Related: SEC Looks To Block Grayscale Bitcoin ETF Review Bid

Like Grayscale Investments, the firm has also been pushing to launch an exchange-traded fund (ETF) offering exposure to the spot price of Bitcoin (BTC) since early 2021.

However, the SEC has rejected WidsomTree’s applications on several occasions, citing general concerns over fraud and market manipulation in BTC trading markets.

To date, the SEC has still not approved a spot BTC ETF.

However, the firm offers various products that track the altcoin market and in March also launched three crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) backed by Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA) and Polkadot (DOT).