In a groundbreaking move, SIX, Switzerland’s leading stock exchange with a $1.6 trillion market capitalization, has given the thumbs-up to the world’s first multiple-cryptocurrency-based Exchange-Traded Product (ETP).
As reported by the Financial Times Nov. 17, the Amun Crypto ETP will debut next week on Switzerland’s 168-year-old stalwart equity market with a basket of crypto-assets including Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin, weighted in that order with the original cryptocurrency accounting for just shy of 50 percent of all assets held, and trading under the tongue-in-cheek ticker “HODL”.
To many, the move would herald the widely anticipated ribbon-cutting ceremony to institutional cryptocurrency sponsorship as the market-leading Bitcoin dwindles above the yearly low of $5371 it plunged to on Nov. 15, all as retail investors and post-ICO projects sniff out the faintest aromas of fresh capital that would thinkably salvage much of their double-digit losses.
Is Wall Street Missing the Boat?
And while Wall Street may have traditionally stood as the brightest beacon of hope to profitless crypto investors, SIX looks to have beaten the SEC to the punch on launching the first Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF), an investment vehicle that comes under the titanic umbrella of the global ETP market, which captured $31 billion in October alone.
Speaking to Financial Times, the co-founder and CEO of London-based Amun seemed to hail the new product as having the hallmark qualities of the cryptocurrency market’s much-awaited institutional onramp; permitting smooth exposure to a broad range of cryptocurrencies in fully compliant fashion, without having to purchase and store the underlying assets.
SIX, who in July said it would be launching a fully regulated cryptocurrency exchange, would certainly appear to be buckling down to realize Swiss Prime Minister’s ambition for the European banking stronghold to become the “Crypto Nation”—Amun’s product being brought to market just months after its September announcement.
Amun’s chief whip, Hany Rashwan, stated:
The Amun ETP will give institutional investors that are restricted to investing only in securities or do not want to set up custody for digital assets exposure to cryptocurrencies. It will also provide access for retail investors that currently have no access to crypto exchanges due to local regulatory impediments,
Where the move would surely turn up the heat on the SEC in its years-long deliberation over Bitcoin ETF proposals, whatever footprint the Amun ETP leaves in the cryptocurrency market may be dwarfed by the immense pits of wealth that Wall Street would likely pour into a Bitcoin ETF; the US commanding 70% of all assets and flows in the entire ETP market, according to BlackRock, 2018.
