In brief
- eToro has launched a stock portfolio listing companies connected to Bitcoin.
- The portfolio includes payments giant PayPal, and crypto exchange Coinbase.
eToro, a trading and multi-asset brokerage company, is launching a new stock portfolio that offers clients exposure to companies that are “building the value chain” around Bitcoin.
The eToro BitcoinWorldWide portfolio includes an array of companies that are—in one way or another—currently connected to Bitcoin and the wider cryptocurrency market. It includes PayPal, Nvidia, Canaan, and Coinbase. eToro users can invest in BitcoinWorldWide from a starting price of $1,000, with no management fees.
“The most significant change surrounding the world’s largest crypto is not its price, but the companies building the value chain around it,” said Dani Brinker, eToro’s head of portfolio investments in a press release, adding, “There’s more to Bitcoin than you might think.”
However, other companies that have become household names in the crypto space—such as MicroStrategy—have been excluded from the list. This is because eToro made the conscious decision to exclude any company that, despite being bullish on Bitcoin, “lacks business units related to its activity.” In addition, an eToro spokesperson told Decrypt that, "A company investing in crypto or holding it on their balance sheet will not meet the criteria to be included in the portfolio."
“Our aim is to provide retail investors with an easy way to get exposure to companies that deliver a service or product essential to the further adoption of Bitcoin,” Brinker added.
The BitcoinWorldWide basket
In November 2020, PayPal made headlines when it announced US customers could trade in cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, the payments giant announced that it intends to expand its crypto payments to the UK, and just last month, CEO Dan Schulman said he plans to launch a new PayPal team focused exclusively on crypto.
Chip manufacturing company Nvidia recently won a two-year-long lawsuit from investors. It successfully dismissed claims that the company hid reliance on cryptocurrency mining. It has since targeted $150 million in revenue from the company’s new Ethereum mining processor.
Canaan, a publicly listed crypto mining hardware company, has seen its stock jump by nearly 1000% in the last six months.
And unless you’ve been living under a rock, you would have noticed that crypto exchange Coinbase hit the Nasdaq earlier this month, too. Shares debuted at a price of $381, and while they fell by 14% by the close of play on April 14, Coinbase’s public listing has almost unanimously been seen as a milestone event for crypto.
eToro itself is set to go public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that will value the company at $10 billion, with investment from SoftBank's Vision Fund 2.