Scotiabank from Canada has teamed up with 3iQ to launch a new ETF that holds multiple cryptocurrenci

Canada's Scotiabank Jumps Into Crypto ETFs With 3iQ, Offering BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP in One Package

Canada's banking giants are making moves in crypto. Scotiabank, one of the country's top five banks, has teamed up with digital asset manager 3iQ to launch a brand new cryptocurrency ETF. It's another sign that institutional adoption of crypto is picking up steam in Canada—something that's been happening for years now, well before the U.S. finally got its act together on spot Bitcoin ETFs.

The new fund, called the Dynamic Active Multi-Crypto ETF, comes from Scotiabank's asset management arm, Dynamic Funds. It officially started trading Wednesday on Cboe Canada under the ticker DXMC. What's in the basket? A mix of the big names: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), and XRP (XRP). So instead of buying and storing these tokens separately on some exchange, investors can just grab this one ETF and get exposure to all four.

Bloomberg's ETF expert, Eric Balchunas, pointed out that the fees on this thing are pretty aggressive. Dynamic said they've cut the expense ratio down to 0.25% from 0.45%, and that rate's locked in until March 2027. That's a solid deal. And it's part of a bigger trend—investors are really digging these multi-asset crypto ETFs because you get a whole portfolio of digital assets in one trade. Plus, it's all happening on a traditional stock exchange, under regulation, which feels a lot safer than messing around with individual wallets and exchanges.

Canada's been ahead of the game on this stuff for a while. Sure, ETFs are all the rage in the U.S. now, especially after the SEC finally approved a bunch of spot Bitcoin ETFs back in early 2024. But Canada was doing this years ago. 3iQ, the firm partnering with Scotiabank here, was one of the pioneers.

Way back in 2021, 3iQ launched one of the first publicly traded spot Bitcoin funds in the world—right there in Canada. That was years before the U.S. even came close to approving anything like it. And despite Canada's ETF market being smaller, that fund still managed to blow past C$1 billion in assets under management pretty quickly. That was a huge deal at the time.

Since then, Canada's just kept building out its crypto ETF lineup. They've added spot Ethereum funds and other digital asset products trading on exchanges like the Toronto Stock Exchange and Cboe Canada. It's all about giving investors a regulated, straightforward way to get into mainstream crypto.

Oh, and one more thing about 3iQ: Cointelegraph reported recently that they're getting acquired by Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck for a cool $111.84 million. That deal's expected to wrap up sometime in the second quarter of this year.