Ethereum Fund Goes Live in Canada After $75 Million Raise

The Toronto Stock Exchange is officially getting its first Ethereum-based fund, after the 3iQ Ether Fund raised more than $75 million in contributions from Canadian investors.

3iQ announced The Ether Fund, an ETF-like tradable asset, is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange as of today. The fund is managed by 3iQ and will hold nearly 134,000 ETH managed by Gemini Custody services. The official listing caps off years of work bringing digital asset trusts to Canadian exchanges, offering ETH exposure to a whole new class of investors.

3iQ received approval for The Ether Fund on December 3, with the capacity to raise up to $107.5 million for the initial purchase of ETH. The fund will trade under the ticker QETH.U and has seen more than $310,000 in volume on the first day of trading. The product can be traded just like any other stock on the TSX, and tracks the price of Ethereum.

"Our charter at 3iQ is to bring digital assets to the listed markets in a convenient and familiar fund format,” 3iQ managing director Tom Lombardi told Decrypt. 

"The Ether Fund (TSX:QETH.U) is the country’s first regulated and major exchange listed ETH fund, and is the next step in our company’s journey. Both The Bitcoin Fund and The Ether Fund can also be held in Canadian registered retirement accounts."

3iQ is a Canadian digital asset investment manager that holds more than C$400 million in assets under management. 3iQ pioneered Canada’s first public Bitcoin ETF, the Bitcoin Fund, in April 2020 after years of working with regulators to approve the fund.

3iQ isn’t the only investment manager making it easier to invest in digital assets in recent months. Grayscale, a US based purveyor of exchange traded digital asset funds, split its Ethereum stock worth $1.6 billion on December 2, and purchased an additional $58 million in ETH and $266 million of Bitcoin on December 10. Grayscale increased its regulatory status to a SEC reporting company on October 14, and secured more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency investments overall in Q3 2020.

US-based MicroStrategy, traded under MSTR, has also become something of a de facto Bitcoin investment vehicle, with Bitcoin bull Michael Saylor guiding the business to a $425 million BTC purchase in October. In December, MicroStrategy announced plans to sell $550 million in additional equity to buy still more Bitcoin.

With the price of Bitcoin up more than 150% and Ethereum up more than 300% YTD, it’s little surprise that investment managers are taking notice, and doing what it takes to bring digital assets to a wider audience. The question is, will these new investors end up being the ones that push digital assets prices to new heights?

Editor's note: This article and its headline have been updated to clarify that 3iQ's Ether Fund is not an ETF.