What if Europe was about to overtake the USA? While Uncle Sam’s Country licensed its first bitcoin ETF in October 2021, no cash ETF is currently operational there. Even if the finance giant Blackrock filed a request to operate one on June 15. This has enchanted crypto fans across the Atlantic, even if the calendar is difficult to read for the moment. Off, July 13, Jacobi CEO Jamie Khurshid has announced that Europe’s first spot bitcoin ETF is expected to launch later this month. As a reminder, a Bitcoin spot ETF offers the same investment capabilities as a Bitcoin futures ETF, but it only offers users the option to invest at the spot price of bitcoin rather than a future value. Deciphering this new giant leap in the acceptance of Bitcoin as a legitimate investment asset.
Jacobi welcomes its launch and reassures investors
The spot bitcoin ETF will be listed as BCOIN on Euronext Amsterdam, a very crypto friendly stock exchange. “This will be the first Bitcoin ETF on Euronext,” Jacobi said on his site. “All of the other products that currently exist in our segment are exchange-traded notes. With our ETF, fund investors directly acquire and hold the shares of the fund that holds the bitcoin.”
The CEO of Euronext, Stéphane Boujnah, also welcomes this launch. “So far, Europe has only seen traded products on the stock market with various forms of debt and complex structures that do not allow investors to make informed decisions about the debt and risk exposure they take on” did he declare.
These two statements serve the same purpose: reassure institutional investors about the viability of the fund. With this in mind, Jacobi also stressed “there is no chance that any investment will lead to any form of exposure to subprime borrowers, yield platforms or Defi protocols.” Another important point, the ETF cannot be used for leverage or for derivativeswhich could lead to “significant counterparty risk”.
Jacobi Asset Management also announced that the ETF’s underlying digital assets will be subject to independent verification and will be held by Fidelity Digital Assets on behalf of the fund. Which makes the company conclude: “this is why we are convinced that institutions can now integrate digital assets into their diversified portfolios”
Launch already postponed
English society originally planned to launch its spot Bitcoin ETF on the European market in July 2022. However, due to exceptional events like the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in May 2022 and the bankruptcy of FTX in November, the asset manager decided to postpone the listing. According to the Financial Times, Jacobi has now decided to launch the ETF due to the positive development of demand compared to 2022. In other words, according to market studies, the latter is ripe for these new financial products.
This news represents a big step in the long road of adoption of cryptos (and bitcoin in particular) by the traditional financial ecosystem. Crypto lovers therefore have every interest in following how this bitcoin cash ETF will be received by institutional investors. Following the next number.
Sources: Theblock, Cointelegraph, Cryptoslate