While the Securities and Exchange Commission is still scrutinizing a spot bitcoin exchange traded fund in the U.S., Fidelity International has already been given the green light to launch a Europe-listed physically or digitally backed bitcoin exchange traded product to meet the growing demand for cryptocurrency assets.
Fidelity’s newest Physical Bitcoin ETP will be available to professional and institutional investors in Europe and listed on Xetra in Frankfurt, Germany, the Financial Times reports. The product will start trading on Zurich’s Six in the weeks ahead.
Fidelity Digital Assets, the digital assets side of Fidelity Investments, will be the custodian for the bitcoin ETP’s underlying holdings.
Nick King, head of exchange traded funds at Fidelity, told the Financial Times that the launch was an “important evolution” in the company’s ETP offering and the first step in its “digital assets product capability.”
The ETP’s “underlying distributed ledger technology has the potential to revolutionise the financial system over time and disrupt many parts of the financial world with profound implications for investors,” Christian Staub, managing director for Europe at Fidelity, told the Financial Times.
According to a recent Fidelity Digital Assets survey, 70% of institutional investors are willing to buy or invest in digital assets “in the near future.” Additionally, over 90% of respondents who exhibited interest in digital assets also indicated willingness to allocation to the asset class within the next five years.
Fidelity’s Physical Bitcoin ETP launch comes after Fidelity Digital Assets was granted official registration with U.K. regulator Financial Conduct Authority for its digital assets custody and trade execution business late in 2021.
Meanwhile, in the United States, a spot bitcoin ETF has yet to pass regulatory approval, with the SEC already rejecting several asset managers’ spot ETF proposals. A proposal to list Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust was also denied last month.
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