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At the beginning of this year, the long-awaited bitcoin (BTC) spot finally arrived exchange traded funds (ETFs), or exchange traded funds, approved and launched in the United States.
Bitcoin performed remarkably strongly at the beginning of this year, partly thanks to these ETFs. There’s a chance we’ll see a slight repeat of this later this year in Australia with their ‘first’ bitcoin ETFs.
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Australia’s largest stock exchange will receive its first bitcoin ETFs this year
The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), Australia’s largest stock exchange, may list its first bitcoin ETFs before the end of the year.
Bloomberg news agency reported this on April 28, based on anonymous sources. That’s big news considering ASX is responsible for a whopping 80% of all share trading in Australia.
The news comes after the first bitcoin ETFs were recently approved in Hong Kong. It mainly comes after US bitcoin ETFs managed to raise a whopping $53 billion, Bloomberg reports.
Three asset managers have already submitted applications for spot bitcoin ETFs to the Australian regulator. This concerns DigitalX, BetaShares and VanEck. VanEck also manages one of the bitcoin ETFs in the US.
The influx into the US “proves that digital assets are here to stay,” said Justin Arzadon, head of digital assets at BetaShares.
The new funds are unlikely to raise the same amounts as their US counterparts, but they could still attract billions. Australia’s $2.3 trillion pension market in particular has the potential to generate large inflows, says VanEck’s Jamie Hannah.
Bitcoin ETFs sent BTC prices to new all-time highs
This is not the first time that bitcoin ETFs have launched in Australia. Two ETFs were already launched on CBOE Australia in 2022, but they did not see much success. However, CBOE Australia is a much smaller exchange and one of its funds was removed shortly after launch.
The bitcoin price rose enormously in the run-up to the launch of the American ETFs and afterwards. The price rose from $27,000 in October 2023 to $73,800 in March 2024.
This increase of 170% in just six months was mainly caused by the ETFs. For the first time, bitcoin reached a new level all time high even before the halving.
However, in recent weeks the ETFs have been underperforming and have mainly seen a net outflow. In the meantime, the price has also come to a standstill. The first bitcoin ETFs will launch in Hong Kong this week.
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