A new fund will track NFTs and blockchain companies as metaverse ETF takes off

• A new exchange-traded fund from Defiance is investing in companies exposed to NFTs and crypto.
• The NFTZ fund is invested in companies including crypto miners, crypto exchanges, and fintech.

A exchange-traded fund that will give investors exposure to the booming world of non-fungible tokens hit the market Thursday. It's called NFTZ.

Created by Defiance ETFs, the novel fund is investing in companies with exposure to the NFT market and blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystems, the company said in a press release.

NFTs, digital collectibles tied to the blockchain, have soared in popularity this year. Total trading volume reached $15 billion as of October, Defiance said.

"The NFT revolution will fundamentally change the economic model for artists, athletes, creators, and many more industries that we can't even conceive of today." Defiance Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer Sylvia Jablonski said in a statement to Insider. "NFTs could be bigger than the internet."

The fund goes beyond NFTs, though. Its companies are "key players" to building the metaverse, Bloomberg wrote, citing Jablonski. The metaverse, a digital world where people can interact, has been dubbed the next phase of the internet. And some have said NFTs and blockchain technology are the key to unlocking it.

Some of the fund's biggest investments include fintech banking company Silvergate, crypto miners Marathon Digital Holdings and Bitfarms, and crypto-exchange Coinbase, among others. After launching Thursday, NFTZ fell 2.5% to $23.50 at 12:01 p.m. in New York.

A number of crypto and Web3 ETFs have debuted this year. The Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF has seen its inflows surge more than six-fold, since the company formerly known as Facebook rebranded to Meta in the hopes of moving into the virtual world. The fund started with just a few million dollars in June and now has $823.2 million in assets, Insider reported. In October, the first-ever bitcoin-related ETF in the US began trading and enjoyed a huge debut.