The London-based digital asset management company Jacobi Investment Funds PCC announced that its new Bitcoin ETF is finally going live on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange on August 15, 2023, more than a year after its original 2022 launch date.
As previously reported, the offering was billed as the first spot or physical-backed Bitcoin fund, allowing investors to obtain exposure to a financial product backed by BTC.
The new ETF will trade under the ticker BCOIN, and the Guernsey Financial Services Commission approved the product in October 2021. According to Blockworks, Fidelity Digital Assets will manage the BCOIN ETF’s custody functions.
Having added a renewable energy certificate (REC) to the ETF, the asset management firm highlighted the fund’s environmentally and socially beneficial nature.
The fund uses external data to assess the Bitcoin network’s energy consumption, then purchases and retires RECs. The RECs are also recorded on a blockchain service, which enables investors to verify the fund’s environmental claims.
BCOIN utilizes the FT Wilshire Bitcoin Blended Price Index to gain access to real-time average Bitcoin price information from select cryptocurrency exchanges. The spot ETF permits investors to obtain exposure to the Bitcoin market without directly owning or holding the underlying asset.
Europe has reached a significant milestone with the launch of the spot Bitcoin ETF. At the same time, the United States has yet to approve several similar spot Bitcoin ETF applications from major asset managers such as BlackRock and Fidelity.
A statement by Martin Bednall, chief executive officer of Jacobi, highlighted the continent’s progressive attitude toward cryptocurrency investment products as a possible catalyst for increased adoption.
“It is exciting to see Europe moving ahead of the US in opening up Bitcoin investing for institutional investors who want safe, secure access to the benefits of digital assets using familiar and regulated structures like our ETF.”
The inauguration of Jacoby Bitcoin ETF follows the June 2023 debut of Melanion Capital’s Bitcoin Equities ETF on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange.
The ETF is designed to monitor the Melanion Bitcoin Exposure Index, a custom basket of European and American stocks that are highly correlated with the market price of Bitcoin.
This differs from the spot ETF in that investors gain exposure to a fund of stocks of companies with significant Bitcoin holdings, cryptocurrency exchanges, and mining operations.
This includes companies like MicroStrategy, which holds over 140,000 BTC, and Riot, Marathon Digital, and Hut8, all significant Bitcoin mining companies.
After the long-awaited launch of Jacobi Asset Management’s Jacobi FT Wilshire Bitcoin ETF, Europe will receive its first-ever spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.
