After a thorough internal testing, Harvest Portfolios has been granted the approval to launch the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on the blockchain technology in Canada. According to the announcement made by the company, the symbol of the fund is HBLK, it will start trading on the market in Toronto and will be focused on small and large blockchain corporations.
Harvest Portfolios already has its own Harvest blockchain technology index, which is designed to follow the performance of the publisher, both for small and developing blockchain segments.
The approval of the Harvest exchange-traded fund is a good news for two other companies, First Trust Portfolios Canada and Evolve Funds Group Inc. These two companies have already filed their applications to launch similar exchange-traded funds. The manager of the First Trust ETF, Karl Cheong, said that every conversation with the clients is inevitably leading to questions related to the investment in the blockchain technology and bitcoin.
Contrary to Canada, the regulators in the United States of America believe such funds are not yet ready to be regulated according to the US law.
Dalia Blass, the director of the Division of Investment Management of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, said the Commission has some important open questions about the way the exchange-traded funds containing huge amounts of cryptocurrencies and other related products should be treated. Blass added that it was yet to be seen whether the ETFs could meet the legal requirements in the US.
