Franklin Templeton filed with the SEC on Thursday for two new exchange-traded funds that hold baskets of U.S. stocks and steer the dividends those companies pay into Bitcoin instead of cash or reinvested shares. The Franklin US Equity Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF and the Franklin US Innovation Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF would each track a new VettaFi index, with the equity benchmark currently comprising roughly 498 securities ranging from about $7.5 billion to $4.9 trillion in market capitalization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both funds start at a 5% Bitcoin weighting against 95% equities, with exposure capped at 20% between rebalancing dates and quarterly resets trimming any excess back down toward 4.5%. The funds would gain that exposure through existing Bitcoin ETPs and futures rather than holding the asset directly, and the filing targets an anticipated effective date of Sept. 1, 2026. The “DRIP” naming borrows from traditional dividend-reinvestment plans long used to compound stock holdings, here repurposed to accumulate Bitcoin instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The filing extends Franklin Templeton’s broader push into digital assets. The firm already runs its own spot Bitcoin ETF, launched a dedicated crypto division through its acquisition of CoinFund spinoff 250 Digital, and struck a tokenization partnership with Kraken parent Payward. According to SoSoValue data cited by crypto.news<\/em>, Franklin’s existing spot Bitcoin ETF, EZBC, held $358.9 million in net assets as of Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The structure adds to an already crowded field. Analysts expect more than 100 crypto ETFs to launch this year as issuers increasingly compete on structure rather than plain spot exposure, a trend also visible in covered-call products like BlackRock’s newly launched iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF. By funneling already-existing dividend cash flows rather than requiring fresh capital, the DRIP design creates a mechanical, recurring source of Bitcoin demand that doesn’t depend on investor sentiment swinging in its favor \u2014 a structural bet that may matter more over years than days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Franklin Templeton filed with the SEC on Thursday for two new exchange-traded funds that hold baskets of U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eft"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":432,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions\/432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}