WisdomTree’s Ethereum and Stellar-Enabled Funds Receive SEC’s Approval

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved WisdomTree’s nine blockchain-enabled funds.

According to the official press release, the new digital funds will reflect different exposures, with each of them investing in traditional assets, but will not track crypto assets. However, the firm will leverage Stellar or Ethereum blockchains as a secondary record of share ownership, with official ownership records maintained by the digital funds’ transfer agent.

• With the new product, the asset manager aims to bring fixed income, equities, and commodities into the digital world through funds and tokenized exposures with the new product.
• Will Peck, WisdomTree Head of Digital Assets, believes that the latest offering will exhibit the type of “curated experience” that the $82 billion asset manager expect to provide its Prime users by bringing mainstream assets into the digital ecosystem.

“We believe that blockchain-enabled finance has the potential to improve the investor experience through enhanced liquidity, transparency, and standardization, which we aim to achieve over time, and these nine digital funds are setting the foundation as we seek to bridge the gap between traditional finance and digital finance today.”

• The approval from the securities agency comes three months after it greenlighted WisdomTree’s first digital fund – the WisdomTree Short-Term Treasury Digital Fund (WTSYX) in September.
• During the same time, WisdomTree also launched its Short-Term Treasury Digital Fund after SEC’s approval.
• WisdomTree Chief Operating Officer Jarrett Lilien recently said that while crypto is interesting, the real opportunity, however, is blockchain-enabled finance.

“It’s a mistake to confuse crypto, which is a use case for the blockchain…with the broader opportunity we’re pursuing.”