Crypto firm ETC Group has launched the first bitcoin exchange-traded product on a UK exchange.
The launch of ETC Group’s ETP, BTCetc, comes as institutional interest in digital currencies surges and as the value of cryptocurrencies continues its volatile ride upwards since the beginning of the pandemic.
The ETP will debut on Aquis Exchange in London and Paris on 7 June for professional investors, the firms said in a 1 June statement.
Clearing will be carried out by SIX x-clear, which is part of Swiss SIX Group, as the sole central counterparty providing clearing.
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“Investors are increasingly accepting digital assets as a bona fide asset class and giving them a place in balanced investment portfolios,” said Alasdair Haynes, chief executive of Aquis.
In June 2020, BTCetc also became the world’s first centrally cleared bitcoin ETP on Deutsche Borse’s XETRA platform.
It was then listed on SIX in January 2021. According to data from Bloomberg cited in the firms’ statement, the ETP reported inflows of $459.66m in the first quarter of the year.
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The price of cryptocurrencies has yo-yoed since the beginning of the pandemic, with bitcoin, the largest digital currency by market capitalisation, hitting highs of $$64,829 in mid-April according to CoinDesk. As of 09:04am BST, bitcoin was trading at $36,901.
Separately, deVere Group, an advisory firm with $12bn under advisement, launched a fixed-yield bond on 1 June that tracks futures of bitcoin and ether on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange over a one-year maturity period.
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