This is an excerpt from CoinDesk newsletter 'Daybook.' Sign up here, if you haven't already.
In recent years, experts have recommended that investors allocate 1%-5% of their portfolios to bitcoin BTC$62,600.86, hailing the cryptocurrency as a diversifier.
Now Franklin Templeton, which manages billions of dollars for clients, is looking to offer two alternative investment vehicles that do just that. The key feature is that the proposed exchange-traded funds use corporate dividends to buy exposure to bitcoin, creating an indirect, steady source of demand for the largest cryptocurrency.
In a Thursday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company registered the Franklin US Equity Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF and the Franklin US Innovation Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF.
Both are designed to maintain an allocation of 95% in U.S. equities and 5% in bitcoin. They will hold large-cap U.S. stocks, with the first offering broad market exposure and the second focused on growth and innovation companies. Any dividends collected will be reinvested in bitcoin ETFs, futures or other instruments.
The structure effectively creates an automatic, low-maintenance 5% bitcoin feed funded entirely by equity dividends.
If approved, the ETFs could begin trading as early as September. While regulatory approval is not guaranteed, the filing signals growing institutional comfort with marrying traditional equities and cryptocurrency in regulated wrappers.
These filings follow the recent debut of BlackRock's Income ETF, which allows institutions to monetize cryptocurrency's volatility. The 11 spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. have pulled in more than $53 billion in investor capital since their inception in 2024, according to SoSoValue data.
Taken together, these developments point to continued institutional appetite for bitcoin despite the bear market. The BTC price peaked at $126,000 in October last year and was recently trading below $62,500.
The price has dropped by over 2% in the past 24 hours.
"The bulls still have some hope, as a formal break of the trend would require the price to settle below previous lows near $61.5K. Even in this scenario, the price decline could stall in the $59–60K range, which represents this year’s most critical support level," Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at the FxPPro said in an email.
A market holiday in the U.S. on Friday for Juneteenth may lead to thin liquidity and erratic price moves. Stay alert!
Read more: For analysis of today's activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today . For a comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead."
What’s trending
- U.S.-Iran talks postponed as Vance cancels trip and Israel intensifies strikes in southern Lebanon (NBC): The talks between the U.S. and Iran were postponed Friday, as Vice President JD Vance canceled his planned travel to Switzerland and renewed fighting between Israel and Hezbollah cast doubts on the deal to end the war.
- Andy Burnham's election win paves way for bid to oust U.K. PM Starmer (Reuters): Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor nicknamed "King of the North," won a special election in Makerfield in northwest England with 54.8% of the vote, beating the candidate for Nigel Farage's populist Reform UK party, on 34.5%.
- Digital credit market hit by huge selloff as Strive CEO blames leverage liquidations (CoinDesk): Matt Cole said the decline was a "leverage liquidation event" caused by margin calls and forced selling, not a weakening of issuers' credit quality.
- Google is using Nvidia’s playbook to build a rival AI chip business (WSJ): Google is making an ambitious play for a bigger slice of the 21st century’s most important market: the chips that power artificial intelligence. The company's financial might and years of technical development put it in prime position to succeed.
Today’s signal
XRP's daily chart. (TradingView)
The chart shows XRP's daily price swings in candlestick format.
The token has dived out of what looks like an inverted flag pattern, a bearish reading. In simple words, a counter-trend consolidation has ended in the direction of the primary trend, which has been bearish.
Deeper losses may follow.
