With news last week that CommSec would allow for trading of up to 10 cryptocurrencies, it's another step towards seeing crypto becoming more than just a passing fad. It's been something we've seen progressing in the ETF markets too with our business partner ETFtracker / New Era Analytics highlighting the coming of crypto based ETFs in Australia and the US since mid-2020 and continuing to cover things in that space so let's take a look at a timeline of events there.
Mid 2021 - ASIC releases their consultation paper (CP343) on crypto-assets as underlying assets for Exchange Traded products and receives feedback from the public for this.
June to July 2021 - more talk of bitcoin ETF filings and approvals being awaited fomr the US SEC for spot bitcoin priced ETFs.
Late August 2021 - SEC Chair Gary Gensler appears to show more favourable attitude towards a bitcoin futures based ETF so filings for those types of bitcoin ETFs start to appear
September 2021 - ARK Invest announces a fund that will invest in Canadian bitcoin ETFs (because as at that time, they had bitcoin ETFs in Canada but not the US).
October 2021 - In the USA, BITO, the ProShares Bitcoin Futures ETF launches and has the biggest 1-day in US history with nearly $1 billion traded on day 1 of its existence.
Valkyrie becomes the 2nd bitcoin futures ETF to launch and whilst not as big as BITO, is the 14th largest 1-day launch in US ETF history.
Closer to home, BetaShares announces CRYP filing in early October and ETF Securities announces FTEC launch, first passive ETF on Chi-X and the first official blockchain related (as well as fintech) ETF.
Another ETF giving investors blockchain exposure, DIGA also launches from Cosmos Asset Management.
At the end of October, we also saw the announcement that ASIC would allow for cryptocurrnecy backed funds for retail investors but under some conditions that meant alt-coins likely left out.
Additionally, CRYP launched in late October and was the biggest 1-day launch in ASX history with over $42 million traded.
November 2021 - CommSec announces it will allow for crypto trading on a select group of 10 cryptocurrencies.
We're still in November here but it certainly looks like the race is on to get a spot cryptocurrency ETF here in Australia and given how popular blockchain/crypto exposed ETFs have been it would not be a surprise if it is huge.
All of this adds to the collective acceptance that we're seeing with cryptocurrencies and DeFi and we can see that pushing us faster towards the future of finance.
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