U.S. company plans funds that double bitcoin price moves

Bitcoin is one of the wildest trades in the market today, delivering sharp gains and losses that defy explanation. Trading has been expensive and difficult, with brokerages offering limited access and specialist websites like Coinbase reporting regular outages. Top voices on markets from economist Robert Shiller to JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon have warned people off buying bitcoin.

Yet asset managers have been racing to design more than 10 proposals for bitcoin funds that are currently before U.S. regulators.

New ETFs could make access to bitcoin easier and, in the case of the Direxion product, mean bigger stakes for investors, with a 25 percent gain or loss on one day doubled to 50 percent.

So far the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has declined or put on hold all the proposals.

A spokesman representing Direxion declined to comment on the latest filing as did a representative from NYSE.

Bitcoin gained nearly 12 percent on Friday to $16,928 on the Bitstamp exchange.