Asia’s rst spot bitcoin, ether ETFs begin trading in Hong Kong
Hong Kong on Tuesday launched trading of Asia’s rst spot bitcoin and ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), moving forward in the city’s race to become a regional virtual asset investment hub.
The debut comes three months after the United States gave the green light to ETFs pegged to bitcoin’s spot price, making it easier for mainstream investors to add the unit to portfolio.
Hong Kong’s pioneering crypto ETFs on the city’s bourse include six funds issued by three managers — Bosera Funds, China Asset Management (Hong Kong) Limited and Harvest Global
Investments.
Each company issued a spot bitcoin and a spot ether ETF, which can be traded in both Hong Kong and U.S. dollars, while ChinaAMC (HK) also allowed trading in Chinese yuan.
“These are the rst spot
ETF products of virtual assets in (the) Asia market, which has proven Hong Kong’s leading status in virtual asset development in the region,” Joseph Chan, the city’s undersecretary for nancial services, said at the bell-tolling ceremony in the morning.
He added the government would submit a proposal for creating a licensing scheme for over-the-counter virtual asset trading services to the city’s legislature ‘as soon as possible.’ By the close of trade Tuesday, the new bitcoin ETFs recorded an average price rise of nearly 1.7%, while the ether ETFs dropped about 0.5%.
CCData, a digital assets analysis rm, said on Friday the new funds were “predicted to not attract the same level of in¦ows as those in” the United States.
But “industry experts believe they might encourage other nations to approve cryptocurrency ETFs”, it said.