Grayscale Grabs Invesco Veteran Amid ETF Push

John Hoffman arrives as deadline to convert GBTC into spot bitcoin ETF approaches.

TwitterTwitterTwitter
GabeAlpert310x310
|
Reviewed by: Mark Nacinovich
,
Edited by: Ron Day

Grayscale Investments, manager of the $23.4 billion Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, has hired 18-year Invesco veteran John Hoffman as a deadline approaches to convert the trust into a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund.

Hoffman joined Grayscale as its managing director and head of distribution and strategic partnerships in November, the company said in a statement. Previously, Hoffman had worked at Invesco, He started there in 2006 and rose through the ranks to become the head of Americas, ETFs & Indexed Strategies, in addition to being head of ETF distribution for Invesco’s PowerShares brand, according to his LinkedIn profile. 

Hoffman’s background may prove valuable to Grayscale’s efforts to enter the ETF industry by turning GBTC into a spot bitcoin ETF. In August, Grayscale won a lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission, which had rejected Grayscale's application to convert its trust into a spot bitcoin ETF. 

In a Q&A with Grayscale, Hoffman said that he was drawn to the firm because he sees bitcoin as driving innovation in a similar way that ETFs have.

“Over the decade following my initial bitcoin investment, I fell deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of learning about digital assets and always saw obvious parallels to the ETF world,” he said.

Another Invesco Departure

It’s the second time this week a high-level Invesco employee has defected to another firm. On Monday, State Street Global Advisors announced it hired Anna Paglia from Invesco as global head of ETFs. Paglia, who worked at Invesco for 13 years, was also the global head of ETFs.

A spot bitcoin ETF would hold the cryptocurrency directly, as opposed to existing ETFs that track the asset’s price using options, such as the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO).

Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart said on X, formerly Twitter, that the SEC is likely to approve all current spot bitcoin ETF applications by Jan. 10. 

Contact Gabe Alpert at [email protected]

Gabe Alpert is a former data reporter at etf.com with over seven years’ experience in financial journalism. He also previously contributed reporting and analysis to Barron’s Magazine, Investopedia and other publications.