SEC Clears Triple-Leveraged Bitcoin, Ether ETFs in First for Crypto

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the first exchange-traded products offering triple-leveraged daily exposure to Bitcoin and Ether, opening a new frontier for investors seeking amplified returns in digital assets.

The regulator on Oct. 2 cleared a suite of six leveraged ETPs from asset manager Volatility Shares covering Bitcoin, Ether, gold, silver, crude oil and natural gas, according to filings. The products, listed under the firm's VS Trust, are designed to deliver three times the daily performance of their underlying benchmarks before fees and expenses.

The approval came through a rule change filed by Cboe BZX Exchange, which submitted the proposal on Aug. 10. The SEC published the filing in the Federal Register on Aug. 19 for public comment before granting approval.

Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, described the decision as a significant milestone for both Volatility Shares and the broader crypto market. "This could attract institutional investors seeking leveraged exposure to digital assets, potentially expanding market participation," he said in a post on X.

The Bitcoin and Ether products will track futures prices listed on CME Group, using derivative contracts to achieve their leveraged objective. The structure means the funds reset their exposure daily, a mechanism that can cause performance to diverge significantly from a simple multiple of the underlying asset's return over longer holding periods.