CSOP Asset Management is the most recent fund manager to launch an exchange-traded product (ETP) devoted to metaverse investment.
The CSOP Metaverse Concept ETF, Hong Kong’s first metaverse-focused fund, will invest largely in US-listed companies that create technology that supports products or services that advance the metaverse’s augmented reality. Meta Platforms, the newly renamed parent company of Facebook and Instagram, was its largest holding at the time of its inauguration on Monday, with a 6.38 percent share.
In October 2021, Facebook rebranded as Meta to emphasize the metaverse as a digital extension of its social media platform. The move has grabbed the interest of global investors who are betting on the metaverse’s expansion.
This month, Meta’s stock has fallen after Facebook disclosed its first decline in daily active users in 18 years. CSOP AM, like many other Asian asset managers, is persuaded that the development of the metaverse will develop into a real investment topic, providing long-term opportunities for investors.
“The metaverse represents the beginning of a brand new era, in which a parallel new world will be created,” said Melody He, deputy chief executive at CSOP AM.
“As the latest and one of the most important members of the CSOP thematic ETF series, CSOP Metaverse Concept ETF is our bold attempt at something new and futuristic, providing our investors with state of the art investment opportunities,” said He.
According to CSOP, the metaverse “is best understood as the next iteration of the internet,” and it is an industry in which “vast resources” are being spent by technology behemoths.
According to asset management, the global metaverse industry will grow from $5 billion in 2020 to $1.5 billion in 2030.
the back-tested CSOP Metaverse Concept Portfolio has risen 345 percent since the beginning of 2019, more than twice as much as the tech-focused Nasdaq 100 Index, which has up 149 percent in the same period.
The CSOP Metaverse Concept ETF’s biggest holdings include online gaming platform and developer Roblox, artificial intelligence firm Ndivia, cross-platform game company Unity, Apple, Snap, Sony, and Tence
The new ETF’s investment universe, according to CSOP AM, consists of the 46 most representative metaverse leaders in the United States, with a combined market valuation of $5.2 trillion as of February 3.
Other well-known IT corporations have recently entered the metaverse fray as well. In January, Microsoft agreed to pay $75 billion for games publisher Activision Blizzard, the world’s largest-ever technology acquisition, as a critical pillar for the company’s push into the metaverse, which would enable digital communication through a major gaming platform.
Following the acquisition, Microsoft’s chair and CEO, Satya Nadella, commented, “Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today, and will play a critical role in the development of metaverse platforms.”
According to CSOP AM, a “rapidly changing industrial world” marked by new and evolving technologies requires an active ETF strategy.
The fund, which started with a $9 million investment, is intended to have recurrent expenditures of 2%.
