The first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) approved for Australia’s leading stock exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange, closed its first day of trading with $1.3 million (1.9 million Australian dollars) in trading volume.
It’s far below the debut trading day for the United States’ spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs, which saw $4.5 billion of total trading volumes on the first day across 10 funds, averaging around $450 million each.
Investment firm VanEck, the issuer of the VanEck Bitcoin ETF (VBTC), told Cointelegraph it is optimistic that the product will see similar growth to spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States despite the market size difference.
“Notwithstanding the Australian market being a lot smaller than the U.S. and most of our flow being retail rather than institutional, there is a possibility that we may follow a similar path,” VanEck deputy head of investments and capital markets Jamie Hannah told Cointelegraph.
“We have had a significant amount of retail and professional investors express strong interest in getting Bitcoin exposure through ASX,” Hannah added.
Upon market opening, VBTC was trading at $13.24 and closed the market day at $13.34, with 96,476 shares traded throughout the intraday, according to ASX data.
On June 15, Cointelegraph reported that the CEO for VanEck in the Asia-Pacific region, Arian Neiron, reiterated that the demand is growing in Australia, especially through a “regulated, transparent and familiar investment vehicle.”
“We recognize Bitcoin is an emerging asset class that many advisers and investors want to access,” Neiron said.
“VBTC also makes bitcoin more accessible by managing all the back-end complexity. Understanding the technical aspects of acquiring, storing and securing digital assets is no longer necessary,” he added.
Related: Bitcoin ETFs make 26% of BlackRock's 2024 inflows, 56% of Fidelity’s
Although it is the first spot Bitcoin ETF listed on ASX, two other Bitcoin ETF products have already been launched in Australia.
Recently, the Monochrome Bitcoin ETF was approved and started trading on Australia’s second-largest stock exchange, the Cboe Australia exchange.
In April 2022, the Global X 21Shares Bitcoin ETF became the first Bitcoin ETF product to debut in Australia.
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