Bermuda Stock Exchange to launch first-ever Bitcoin ETF

The Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX) will now have the world’s first BTC Exchange-traded fund (ETF) available to investors

The BSX made an official statement on September 18,  announcing that the Bitcoin ETF will be referred to as Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index ETF. The statement also revealed that there will be 3 million Class E shares issued for trade on the platform.

The ETF is a joint project between the Nasdaq and the regulated Brazilian Fund Manager, Hashdex. The Brazilian fund manager currently holds assets worth about $46.4 million across different funds, holding crypto assets and three other funds. The firm’s crypto-asset custodians are Xapo, Vo1t, Trust and Kingdom.

As of writing, the exact date when the fund will be trading is yet to be known, but local media outlet Infomoney reported it will probably be out by the end of the year.

The report also added that Hashdex decided to partner with the BSX owing to the country’s crypto-friendly jurisdiction. The specifics of the ETF have yet to be made public at this point. Hashdex, however, said that the methodology and other relevant details around the product will be announced by Nasdaq on the product’s launch date.

The crypto index will give firms and other traders access to the crypto market through a traditional investment platform. The index will provide exposure without necessarily holding Bitcoin, hence eliminating the worry about custody.

In response to Oglobo, a local newspaper in Brazil, Marcelo Sampaio (Hashdex’s CEO) said that the fund would take institutional investment in the crypto space to a higher level.

Just this week, former Goldman Sachs executive and fund manager, Raoul Pal, spoke of a Bitcoin ETF launch in the US being close at hand, “I’m going to give you the biggest front-running opportunity of your life: they will get an ETF across the line. There will be billions of dollars that pour into it. Every pension plan will allocate some money to it. Every family office will allocate some money to it. And the more the price goes up, the more they will allocate.”

The SEC in the past has disapproved of several Bitcoin ETF proposals, including those from Wilshire Phoenix and the Winklevoss twins.

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