The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has just seen the listing of its first bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund – “ETF” for short.
Issued by investment management firm VanEck, the new investment product is trading under the ticker symbol “VBTC”. It’s not the first bitcoin ETF to launch in Australia, others have been available for some time on the smaller exchange Cboe Australia.
But it is a first for the ASX, our largest stock exchange. If international experience is anything to go by, the ASX’s new bitcoin spot ETF is likely to draw significant interest and could be the first of many similar products.
In January, American investment manager BlackRock launched a similar product in the US – “IBIT” – which has since grown to manage almost A$30 billion in assets.