(Bloomberg) -- Crypto exchange-traded fund issuer Bitwise Asset Management Inc. has acquired Attestant, an Ethereum staking service in a bid to expand beyond its core businesses with the digital-asset sector seen by advocates as being on the verge of transformation.
Terms of the cash and equity transaction weren’t disclosed. The London-based firm handles about $3.7 billion in assets for institutional investors outside the US who wish to earn rewards by using their Ether to help validate transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. Attestant’s 11 employees will join Bitwise.
After the acquisition, Bitwise will manages more than $10 billion in client assets. The firm’s Bitcoin ETF is the sixth largest of the dozen available to US investors, with about $3.7 billion in assets.
“We are now entering a new chapter of the maturation of this space,” Bitwise Chief Executive Officer Hunter Horsley said in an interview. “I think in this chapter to be most useful for clients they want you to be at a certain scale and to offer broad capabilities.”
While currently, one in five Bitwise clients want to stake their coins to earn yields, in a few years the majority of clients are likely to want to do so, Horsley said.
Staked Ether currently earns 3.43% in annual rewards, according to Staking Rewards. Nearly a third of all Ether in existence, or $112 billion worth, has been staked, according to the site.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.