Bitcoin’s growing adoption among institutional and retail investors has now extended to Australia, with the debut of the VanEck Bitcoin ETF on the country’s main stock exchange. 

Asia-Pacific Poised For Crypto ETF Boom? 

Following similar products approved in the United States and Hong Kong earlier this year, the VanEck Bitcoin ETF commenced trading on the exchange operated by the Australia Stock Exchange (ASX) with a seed investment of approximately A$985,000 ($657,000).

The VanEck Bitcoin ETF launch in Australia is accompanied by the preparations of other players, such as BetaShares Holdings Pty and DigitalX, who plan to list their crypto ETFs on the main Australian board. While VanEck has received approval, the ASX confirms ongoing engagement with other issuers. 

Additionally, crypto ETFs are already available on CBOE Australia, the country’s other stock exchange, featuring products such as Global X 21Shares Bitcoin, Global X 21Shares Ethereum, and Monochrome Bitcoin, collectively holding around $90 million in assets.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Rebecca Sin predicts that the Asia-Pacific region holds significant potential for digital asset ETFs, with an estimated value exceeding $3 billion in the coming years. 

This growth is expected to be evenly split between Australia, Hong Kong, and South Korea, with the latter eventually permitting the listing of crypto funds. 

VanEck’s Bitcoin ETF Holds Steady Amidst Negative ETF Flows

The approval of cryptocurrency ETFs by regulators in the United States and Hong Kong earlier this year has led to significant investment capital inflows. US Bitcoin ETFs, launched in January, have amassed a staggering $56 billion in assets to date, attracting substantial interest from Wall Street investors. 

Similarly, Hong Kong introduced six funds in April, albeit with a more subdued response than their US counterparts.

Recent data from Farside shows that Wednesday’s ETF flows in the US market were negative, with outflows amounting to $152.4 million. 

Fidelity experienced outflows of $83.1 million, while Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) recorded outflows of $62.3 million. VanEck’s Bitcoin ETF, on the other hand, neither recorded inflows nor outflows but has seen positive inflows of $23.6 million over five days this month.

As of the current writing, the largest cryptocurrency in the market continues to exhibit a consolidation phase, maintaining a trading price of $64,895 with no noteworthy changes observed within the past 24 hours. However, Bitcoin has displayed negative performance over longer time frames, experiencing declines of 4% and nearly 9% over the past seven and fourteen days, respectively.

It is worth noting that despite these recent downturns, Bitcoin has achieved impressive gains of 141% year-to-date. Furthermore, Bitcoin boasts a substantial market capitalization of $1.2 billion.

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com