Australia: Bitcoin spot ETF tradable from tomorrow

Tomorrow, on Tuesday, June 4, 2024, the first Bitcoin spot ETF which holds Bitcoin directly will be allowed to start trading in Australia. This was announced by the asset manager Monochrome, which submitted a corresponding application in April, to the crypto news medium Coindesk. This information can also be found on the Monochrome Asset Management website.

IBTC is expected to commence trading on Cboe Australia on Tuesday, June 4, 2024 at 10:00 am (AEST).
_{From the Monochrome website}

After Bitcoin spot ETFs have already been launched in the USA and Hong Kong this year, the time will also come tomorrow in Australia. At the beginning of April, the asset manager submitted an application to the Cboe Australia stock exchange. Approval from the supervisory authority, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), had already been granted at the time. In Australia, applicants must first obtain the green light from the ASIC before submitting an application to an exchange.

Monochrome's Bitcoin ETF has the ticker IBTC and charges an annual fee of 0.98 percent. When it starts trading on Cboe Australia, IBTC will be the first exchange-traded fund on an Australian exchange to hold Bitcoin directly. At least this is what the asset manager Monochrome is communicating.

The Monochrome Bitcoin ETF is the first Bitcoin ETF in Australia to allow direct holding of Bitcoin.
_Monochrome

However, Bloomberg ETF analysts have drawn attention to the fact that a Bitcoin spot ETF is already available for purchase in Australia. The ETF experts attribute the fact that Monochrome itself is talking about launching the first Bitcoin ETF that holds the asset directly to a marketing stunt.

It remains to be seen how high the demand from Australians will be for the new Bitcoin ETF. The ETF launch in the US was a huge success, proving to be a massive price driver. IBIT, BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF, became the fastest ETF in the history of ETFs to raise 20 billion US dollars in capital. On the much less important Hong Kong exchange, there were no sensational inflows and the admission seemed to have had little impact on the Bitcoin price in general.

As the Australian capital market is even smaller than Hong Kong's, IBTC's start of trading on the Cboe Australia is unlikely to be a strong price driver. However, self-administered pension programs, which allow Australians to choose their own pension securities, could drive inflows. More than $500 billion is in this investment structure, which could generate a lot of demand for Bitcoin in an ETF wrapper, according to Jamie Hannah of asset manager VanEck Australia.

Any further Bitcoin ETF approvals that make the 15-year-old asset easily accessible to more and more investors is positive in terms of overall Bitcoin adoption. Bitcoin ETFs are also set to be approved on the larger Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) this year. People familiar with the matter told the news channel Bloomberg at the end of April. It will be interesting to see how demand for Bitcoin and investment products based on it continues to develop worldwide.