- CoinShares launched an exchange-traded bitcoin product on January 19 to be listed in Switzerland.
- Each unit of the product will be physically backed by 0.001 Bitcoin.
- Bitcoin seems to have entered some form of consolidation following a period of high volatility.
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CoinShares, one of the earliest digital asset investing firms, said on Tuesday it had launched an exchange-traded Bitcoin product.
The CoinShares Physical Bitcoin Product is set to be listed on Switzerland’s main stock exchange under the ticker symbol BITC. The dollar serves as its base currency.
Each unit will be physically backed with 0.001 bitcoin, offering investors exposure to the cryptocurrency and the benefits of exchange-traded products.
The issuer is Europe’s largest digital asset manager with more than $2.9 billion assets under management. It was among the first to kickstart investments in crypto products. US-based rival Grayscale Investments manages more than $20 billion in digital assets.
“Over the last 12 months, we have seen a steady increase in interest and demand for digital assets from our institutional clients, and this platform has been built with their feedback in mind,” Frank Spiteri, chief revenue officer at CoinShares, said in a statement.
“The physically backed structure is familiar to institutions who have extensive experience in trading similar commodity-based investment vehicles,” he said.
Last week, Germany-based ETC Group listed a similar physically-backed bitcoin exchange-traded product on Switzerland’s SIX stock exchange last week. The exchange now holds 35 such crypto products.
Bitcoin rose 1.3% to $37,095 on Tuesday, although it was trading upwards of $40,000 only last week. Meanwhile, Ethereum topped its previous all-time high to reach $1,439. The crypto-verse is surging again, but analysts say many cryptocurrency traders are now diversifying into other coins for fear that bitcoin could see another collapse if $41,500 is not reached soon.