Franklin Templeton has registered two proposed exchange-traded funds with Nasdaq that would invest in US equities and route stock dividends into Bitcoin exposure, according to regulatory filings. The products—the Franklin US Equity Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF and the Franklin US Innovation Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF—would trade under the proposed tickers FBEQ and FIBT, though no launch date has been confirmed.
Analyst Nate Geraci drew attention to the filings on October 26, describing the structure as similar to investing in the S&P 500 or Nasdaq 100 with dividends going to BTC. The funds target a 5% Bitcoin allocation, with 95% initially allocated to equities. Annual management fees are listed at 0.09% for the US equity product and 0.19% for the innovation-focused fund. VettaFi maintains the underlying indexes.
Under the proposed rules, regular and special dividends would be incorporated into the Bitcoin allocation on the trading day after the ex-dividend date. At quarterly rebalancing, any Bitcoin allocation above 5% would be cut to 4.5%, and a separate 20% ceiling would trigger a reduction if breached between reviews. The funds may gain Bitcoin exposure through exchange-traded products, futures, options, and eligible depositary receipts, rather than holding BTC directly for investors.
The filings come as Bitcoin trades just under $80,000, down about 1% over 24 hours and roughly 4% over seven days. Existing spot Bitcoin ETFs saw more than $635 million in outflows last Friday, trimming weekly inflows to about $442 million. CoinGlass data also showed about $33 million in Bitcoin liquidations over the previous 24 hours, with long positions accounting for roughly $27 million.
Franklin Templeton already offers direct crypto exposure via its Franklin Bitcoin ETF and Franklin Crypto Index ETF; the new filings would add an equity-plus-Bitcoin option to that lineup.
