Major Dutch stock exchange Euronext Amsterdam, a part of the pan-European marketplace Euronext, is debuting its first Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Jacobi Asset Management, a London-based digital asset management platform, is preparing to launch its Jacobi Bitcoin ETF on Euronext Amsterdam next month, the firm announced on Thursday. The spot Bitcoin ETF will start trading on the Euronext Amsterdam Exchange under the ticker BCOIN.
The Jacobi Bitcoin ETF is positioned as the first spot Bitcoin ETF launched in Europe, Jacobi founder and CEO Jamie Khurshid told Cointelegraph.
“Our product is the first spot or physical-backed Bitcoin fund, and the fund is not allowed to lend, stake or leverage any of the assets it owns. For the first time in Europe, investors buying an exchange-traded Bitcoin product will own the units that own the Bitcoin,” Khurshid said. “There are other exchange-traded products in Europe but no other spot BTC ETF,” he added.
A spokesperson for Euronext confirmed that BCOIN will be the first spot Bitcoin ETF ever listed on Euronext. “This will be the first Bitcoin ETF on Euronext, or the first fund directly investing in Bitcoin. All other currently existing products on our segment are exchange-traded notes, or legally structured as debt instruments,” he said in a statement. While the ETF will arrive in July, Euronext did not provide a specific date for the launch.
As previously reported, Jacobi received approval from the Guernsey Financial Services Commission to launch the Bitcoin ETF in October 2021.
Custodial services for the Jacobi Bitcoin ETF will be provided by Fidelity’s crypto arm Fidelity Digital Assets while Flow Traders and DRW would serve as market makers to facilitate trading. Institutional and professional investors in Europe will be able to have access to the ETF for a 1.5% annual management fee, the announcement notes.
A former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, Khurshid believes that the new Bitcoin ETF launch will help bring more stability to the crypto market amid a massive sell-off. He said:
“We believe this will now remove the barrier to entry for those investment firms that have mandates to invest in regulated products only and will therefore increase adoption of digital assets bringing more stability and less influence from the whales, which is nothing short of a necessity for the crypto industry.”
Jacobi’s Bitcoin ETF launch in the Netherlands is a significant milestone in the global spot crypto ETF market as Amsterdam is associated with Europe’s top sharing trading venue, reportedly outstripping London in 2021.
As previously reported, Canada was one of the first countries in the world to debut a spot Bitcoin ETF with the launch of the Purpose Bitcoin ETF in February 2021. Australia debuted its first crypto ETFs in mid-May 2022.
Related: Why the world needs a spot Bitcoin ETF in the US: 21Shares CEO explains
While the global adoption of spot crypto ETFs has been growing in recent years, the United States is yet to approve a physical-backed Bitcoin ETF. On June 29, crypto investment giant Grayscale launched a legal challenge against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after being denied its application to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into a spot-based Bitcoin ETF.
