Franklin Templeton’s bitcoin-linked ETF filing lists an Oct. 27 effective date

Franklin Templeton ETF Trust filed a post-effective amendment that the SEC’s EDGAR index lists with an effectiveness date of Oct. 27, 2026. The index shows the Form 485BPOS was filed and accepted on Oct. 22. The amendment itself is post-effective amendment No. 172, and it checks the box to become effective on Oct. 27, 2026, under Rule 485(b). The prospectus inside it is dated Oct. 27, 2026. It covers two new series only: the Franklin US Equity Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF and the Franklin US Innovation Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF. A separate Form 8-A, signed Oct. 22, registers both share classes on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The prospectus says the SEC has not approved or disapproved the securities or passed on whether the prospectus is adequate. The filings do not say that trading has started.

The equity fund’s ticker in the prospectus is FBEQ. Its goal is to track, before fees and expenses, the VettaFi US Large-Cap 500 Bitcoin DRIP Index. The prospectus says that index starts from the 500 largest U.S. companies by market capitalization. The innovation fund’s ticker is FIBT. Its goal is to track the VettaFi US Innovation 100 Bitcoin DRIP Index, built from the 100 largest U.S. issuers listed on Nasdaq by market capitalization, excluding companies the index provider categorizes as finance companies. FBEQ lists a management fee and total annual operating expenses of 0.09%. FIBT lists 0.19%. Both list no 12b-1 fee, and both say other expenses are estimates for the current fiscal year. Both say they are newly offered, so they have no portfolio-turnover rate for the latest fiscal year, and the prospectus says each fund has no performance history as of that date.

Under normal market conditions, each fund invests at least 80% of net assets in the index’s component securities and in investments meant to match the index’s bitcoin slice, the prospectus says. It says that bitcoin slice can be sought with bitcoin exchange-traded products, including products sponsored by affiliates of the manager, with options and futures that reference bitcoin or those products, and with depositary receipts that represent an ownership interest in bitcoin. It also says a fund may hold some of that exposure in a wholly owned Cayman Islands subsidiary. At inception, each underlying index reflected a 5% bitcoin allocation and a 95% equity allocation. Regular and special dividends are reinvested into bitcoin at the next day’s open, which the prospectus says increases the bitcoin weight over time. The index caps bitcoin at 20% and applies a 5% cap at each quarterly rebalance. If the weight is above 5% at that rebalance, it is reset to 4.5%. If it closes above 20% between rebalances, it is reset to 4.5% on the close of the second business day after that breach.

Franklin Advisory Services, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Franklin Templeton, Inc., is named as the investment manager. The prospectus says Advisory Services and its affiliates managed about $1.79 trillion as of Sept. 30, 2026. The fee tables, the caps and the effective date are what the filings state. They are not a judgment on whether either fund should be bought or sold, and this article does not predict what the shares or bitcoin will be worth.