- Jacobi Asset Management’s Bitcoin product saw just 113 shares traded on Tuesday on just $2,000 in volume.
- Bitcoin and Ethereum prices dipped overnight, with altcoins and memecoins experiencing sharp sell-offs.
Happy Hump Day!
A new crypto product caused a stir on Tuesday, not in markets but rather online. Jacobi Asset Management’s Bitcoin product, named the Jacobi FT Wilshire Bitcoin ETF, was dubbed Europe’s first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, causing a stir online.
Let’s see what all the fuss is about.
Bitcoin ETFs
Jacobi Asset Management’s new Bitcoin product rattled the crypto Twitter when it launched on Tuesday, but not because it was, as some reports called it, Europe’s “first Bitcoin ETF,” but because it wasn’t, others say.
Patrick Hansen, who is director of European Union Strategy and Policy at Circle, tweeted that one headline was “misleading” as Guernsey, where the fund is domiciled, “is not part of the EU” and because Bitcoin exchange-traded products have existed in the EU for years.
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart noted there are plenty of Bitcoin ETPs in Europe already.
“This is slightly misleading and really just a regulatory arbitrage type of technicality to call it the ‘first European spot Bitcoin ETF,’” Seyffart said.
Indeed, Jersey-based crypto asset manager CoinShares offers a physically-backed Bitcoin exchange-traded product, with assets under management of around $340 million, per the company’s website.
Jacobi’s fund trades as an alternative investment fund on Euronext in Amsterdam, shares are currently trading around $19.90, according to Euronext exchange data.
Volumes have been sluggish since its launch, with just 113 shares traded on Tuesday, according to Euronext data. About 30 shares have been traded today, bringing today volumes since launching to a little over $2,000.
Jacobi initially announced the fund in October 2021 and then slated for launch in June 2022.
The delays were due to a “combination of macroeconomic conditions, the state of the crypto market and the implementation of the decarbonisation solution,” a spokesperson for the firm told DL News.
What the ETF?
CoinShares cleared up confusion for investors around ETPs in an article last month.
The asset manager stressed that crypto ETFs and ETPs are “quite similar, but different!”
The distinction between the two lies in the regulatory rules of the investment region.
In the US, ETF is used to represent products that replicate a benchmark, like Bitcoin. The Securities and Exchange Commission has so far been reluctant to approve a physically backed crypto ETF.
In Europe, the Undertakings for the Undertakings for the Collective Investment of Transferable Securities framework prohibits funds that are based on a single or very few components, CoinShares noted.
Crypto market movers
- Bitcoin dipped 0.7% over the past day, trading around $29,100. The leading cryptocurrency by market cap is down 2.2% over the past week.
- Ethereum fell 0.8% to about $1,825, down 2% since last Wednesday.
- Altcoins traded lower over the past day. Ripple’s XRP fell just over 4%, Solana’s SOL dropped 5.8%, and Polygon’s MATIC was down over 7%.
- Dog-themed memecoins dropped across the board. Dogecoin fell 5.3%, Shiba Inu is down 4.8%, and Floki Inu plunged 8%.