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Bitcoin ETFs were a hit with investors in 2024, and now asset management firms are starting to build out ways to combine crypto and derivatives in exchange-traded packages.
New products are set to roll out this month. Asset manager Calamos announced Monday that it will launch a structured protection ETF that aims to give investors a way to capture some of bitcoin’s upside with 100% downside protection.
The fund will combine options exposure on the Cboe Bitcoin U.S. ETF Index with Treasury holdings and is designed to be held for 12 months. The exact upside cap will be determined Jan. 22, based on options pricing. It will be traded under the ticker CBOJ.
The fund is essentially bringing a popular equity ETF strategy to crypto investing. Defined outcome products, including buffer funds, have boomed in recent years as investors look for new ways to diversify their portfolios. Their gain in popularity was seemingly helped by the 2022 market sell-off, when stocks and bonds both declined.
Spot bitcoin funds launched in January 2024 and had arguably the best debut in ETF history. The funds combined to rake in tens of billions of dollars and helped fuel bitcoin’s run to a record high above $100,000.
Bitcoin has rallied sharply since ETFs tracking the cryptocurrency were approved last January.
The inflows and the crypto rally pushed the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT), the most popular of the funds, over $50 billion in total assets.
However, Matt Kaufman, head of ETFs at Calamos, said his team believes that financial advisors are still largely avoiding bitcoin because of its volatility history, and that these structured funds can win them over.
“For folks looking to access that space, they want to do so in a risk-managed framework, or something that makes a little more sense for their portfolio,” Kaufman said. He also thinks investors will hold the Calamos fund in conjunction with the pure-play bitcoin ETFs.
Calamos is not the only ETF manager working on how to marry crypto exposure with other popular styles of funds.
Innovator and First Trust are two other ETF issuers that have filed to launch funds with strategies similar to those of Calamos. Firms are also trying to combine bitcoin with income-generating strategies, including proposed covered call funds from issuers such as Grayscale and Roundhill.
More funds are likely to be filed throughout 2025, especially with a Securities and Exchange Commission that is expected to be more friendly to crypto under President-elect Donald Trump.
How it works
The Calamos fund is designed to be held for a 12-month period. The stated holding period is Jan. 22, 2025, to Jan. 31, 2026. Because the bitcoin exposure is built through options, which change in price as their expiration date gets closer, it is possible that investors who sell the fund early will get less than the expected gain from a bitcoin rally and could even suffer a loss.
Calamos Bitcoin Structured Alt Protection ETF – January
| Ticker | Holding Period | Downside protection Target | Annual fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBOJ | 1/22/2025-1/31/2026 | 100% | 0.69% |
Source: Calamos
Calamos also plans to launch “floor” funds that offer 90% and 80% protection for bitcoin, allowing for some initial losses in exchange for more upside.
Kaufman said the structure of the bitcoin products that work will likely look different than traditional buffer funds, which protect against the first stated percentage loss, because of the volatility in crypto.
“If you look at the S&P 500 returns, it looks like a normal bell curve distribution. If you look at the distribution of bitcoin returns, it looks much more like a smile. It’s all left tail risk or extreme far right on the upside. So if you built a buffer, you’re really not protecting against much of anything,” Kaufman said.
Another thing to watch is how the options market grows alongside the funds. Options tied to bitcoin ETFs only began rolling out in late 2024. Liquidity issues for options have hurt the performance of leveraged funds tied to MicroStrategy, which is often seen as a proxy for bitcoin.
“We have no concerns about capacity whatsoever,” Kaufman said about the options market for the Calamos funds.