CoinShares Is Starting an Exchange-Traded Bitcoin Product

(Bloomberg) -- CoinShares, a St. Helier, Jersey-based asset manager, is launching an exchange-traded Bitcoin product amid a fierce rally for the world’s largest digital currency.

The CoinShares Physical Bitcoin product will go live on Jan. 19 and be listed under the ticker BITC on the SIX Swiss Exchange. It will charge a 0.98% expense ratio. Komainu, a venture developed by Ledger, Nomura Holdings Inc. and CoinShares, will serve as custodian.

“A lot of institutional clients have a very strong due-diligence process, and we wanted to bring to market a best-in-class product to embrace that demand,” said Frank Spiteri, chief revenue officer at CoinShares. “We are ready, as of January, to embrace the forthcoming demand from institutional clients.”

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CoinShares, which has about $4 billion in assets under management, was among the first to debut a crypto product. It launched a regulated Bitcoin investment vehicle in 2015, when the coin traded around $400.

BITC, which is launching with over $100 million in assets under management, will be physically backed, meaning it will hold the underlying assets it is designed to track. Each unit of the product will be backed with 0.001 Bitcoin.

The launch is happening in the midst of a red-hot rally for the world’s largest cryptocurrency as a greater number of Wall Street firms take interest in it. Bitcoin gained 300% in 2020 and recently set a record high of more than $41,000.

(Updates with AUM figure in fifth paragraph)

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