Hong Kong’s pioneering crypto exchange-traded funds on the city’s bourse include six funds issued by three managers – Bosera Funds, China Asset Management (Hong Kong) Limited and Harvest Global Investments
Hong Kong on Tuesday launched trading of Asia’s first spot bitcoin and ether ETFs, moving forward in the city’s race to become a regional virtual asset investment hub.
Hong Kong’s pioneering crypto exchange-traded funds on the city’s bourse include six funds issued by three managers – Bosera Funds, China Asset Management (Hong Kong) Limited and Harvest Global Investments.
Each firm issued a spot bitcoin and a spot ether exchange-traded fund, which can be traded in both Hong Kong and US dollars, while ChinaAMC (HK) also allowed trading in Chinese yuan.
In the first 30 minutes of trading on Tuesday, the new exchange-traded funds all recorded a price gain of between 0.62% and 3.81%.
CCData, a digital assets analysis firm, said Friday that the new funds were expected to not attract the same level of inflows as those in the US.
But industry experts believe they might encourage other countries to approve crypto currency exchange-traded funds and could help promote the wider adoption of digital assets, CCData added.
Hong Kong also allows investors to carry out in-kind creation and redemption through eligible dealers. That means bitcoin and ether – instead of official currencies like the US dollar – can be used to invest in the exchange-traded funds.
Han Tongli, Chief Executive Officer of Harvest Global, said having in-kind trading in Hong Kong was an obvious advantage over the US.
I believe we are not rivalling against our peers in Hong Kong but the large fund management companies in the US, Han added, according to Hong Kong-based news outlet Techub News.
Han said: We are competing with them on behalf of Hong Kong, we are defending and developing Hong Kong’s status as an international financial hub.
Han added that Hong Kong could also be a sandbox for China to test virtual asset trading – which remains banned in the mainland.
