Two High-Risk ETFs Worth Considering for ASX Investors

If you have the stomach for volatility and the time horizon to ride out sharp swings, two exchange-traded funds listed on the ASX might deserve a closer look this month. Both carry elevated risk. Both have been battered by broader market weakness. And both, depending on your conviction about their underlying sectors, could offer the kind of asymmetric payoff that attracts investors willing to accept real losses in pursuit of outsized gains.

The first is the BetaShares Crypto Innovators ETF, trading under the ticker CRYP. It doesn't own cryptocurrencies directly—no Bitcoin, no Ethereum sitting in a vault somewhere. Instead, it holds shares in the companies that have built their businesses around the crypto ecosystem: the miners who process transactions and earn new coins as reward, the equipment manufacturers who sell the specialized hardware those miners depend on, the trading platforms where people buy and sell digital assets. When cryptocurrencies surge, these companies tend to move in sympathy. When crypto crashes, as it has done repeatedly this year, they crash harder. The fund's holdings include names like Canaan, Coinbase, Riot Blockchain, and Silvergate—companies whose fortunes rise and fall with the sector's mood swings. The bet here is straightforward: if you believe cryptocurrencies are a durable part of the financial system and will eventually recover from their current malaise, then owning a piece of the infrastructure that supports them could be compelling. But that's a big if. There's no guarantee crypto ever returns to its previous peaks. The entire asset class could contract further, or fade into irrelevance. For most investors, this is the riskier of the two options.

The second candidate is the BetaShares Global Cybersecurity ETF, ticker HACK. It occupies a different risk tier—higher than a broad market index fund, but nowhere near as volatile as a crypto play. The fund tilts heavily toward technology companies, which already makes it more sensitive to interest rate moves and growth concerns than the broader market. But its specific focus is on firms selling cybersecurity solutions: Accenture, Cisco, Cloudflare, Crowdstrike, Fortinet, Okta, and Splunk, among others. The thesis is straightforward. Australia has experienced a series of significant cyberattacks in recent years, and the pattern is global. As organizations wake up to the reality of the threat, they spend more on defense. Companies in this space should benefit from that rising demand over time. Like most technology stocks, cybersecurity shares have been hammered this year as investors fled growth assets. That decline, the argument goes, has created an opportunity for patient investors who believe the long-term tailwinds remain intact.

Neither of these funds is suitable for someone who needs their money in the next few years or who loses sleep over portfolio swings. Both have fallen sharply from their highs. Both require conviction about their respective sectors and a willingness to endure periods of significant drawdown. But for investors with a genuine high risk tolerance, a long time horizon, and a thesis about where technology and digital assets are headed, they're worth understanding in detail before deciding whether they belong in a portfolio.