Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment banking behemoth, has submitted an application with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would provide exposure to public businesses in decentralized finance and blockchain throughout the world.
The Goldman Sachs Innovate DeFi and Blockchain Equity ETF seeks to replicate the Decentralized Finance and Blockchain Index from German financial indices provider Solactive. The fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in the index’s securities, stocks, and depository receipts.
The Fund seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Index. The Fund’s investment objective may be changed without shareholder approval upon sixty days’ notice. Shareholders will be provided with sixty days notice in the manner prescribed by the SEC before any change in the Fund’s policy to invest at least 80% of its assets in securities included in its underlying index.
According to the filing, the index intends to provide exposure to companies linked with two major narratives: “the implementation of blockchain technology” and “the digitalization of finance.”
Goldman would select markets from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The SEC is presently evaluating several Bitcoin ETF applications and has postponed judgments on some of them. Although VanEck and WisdomTree have also registered for Ethereum ETFs, Goldman appears to be the first DeFi-related ETF application.
Related: Rothschild investment in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, holds 141,405 shares
Goldman’s application announcement comes as institutions take notice of the DeFi sector, with Grayscale, a major crypto asset management, announcing intentions to create a decentralized finance fund last week.
The methodology underlying Solactive’s index, which requires a company to be listed on a regulated stock exchange, has a market cap of more than $500 million, and have a daily average volume of at least $500 million for the past six months, is likely to disappoint supporters of crypto-native DeFi index products.
Goldman Sachs released the findings of a poll earlier this month, revealing that 15% of assessed family offices have invested in cryptocurrency and recently the bank has also begun trading bitcoin futures alongside Galaxy Digital, the crypto investment firm.
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