After the Hayne Royal Commission many advisers decided to steer away from large dealer groups in favour of becoming self-licensed. In the last six months, however, that trend has taken an abrupt turn.
While known for being the flagbearer for financial product providers, the Financial Services Council is now making serious inroads into the financial advice sector.
ETF Securities to launch Australia’s first crypto ETFs
ETF Securities and 21Shares have confirmed the launch of Australia’s first Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs), allowing local investors to invest in both cryptocurrencies. According to a press announcement from ETF Securities, the leading ETF provider will launch two funds offering simple and cost-effective access to cryptocurrency investments. They are:
- ETFS 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (Code: EBTC) will track the price of bitcoin in Australian dollars.
- ETFS 21Shares Ethereum ETF (Code: EETH) will track the Australian dollar price of ether, which is the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain.
According to the announcement, both EBTC and EETH give investors a way of trading cryptocurrency in a tightly regulated environment, without the need to establish and maintain their own bitcoin or Ethereum wallets, or manage the risks.
Both funds will list on Cboe Australia (formerly Chi-X) and are fully backed by bitcoin and ethereum held in “cold storage” by crypto exchange Coinbase.
“Cold storage involves storing the private keys used to access and transact in cryptocurrencies in offline servers, with no internet access and out of reach of hackers,” says ETF Securities. “Coinbase’s vault has become the preferred storage for many institutions and it holds one of the largest stores of cryptocurrency. Its vault uses advanced encryption and key management, multi-signature bitcoin addresses, military-grade physical security and highly secure processes to keep cryptocurrencies offline and dispersed across three continents.”
ETF Securities Head of Distribution Kanish Chugh says: “The ETFs may be used as an alpha ’tilt’ or side bets in a portfolio. They can also be bought as portfolio diversifiers, as they are completely different asset and uncorrelated to shares, bonds and commodities.”
Both Bitcoin and Ethereum give investors a number of advantages. Bitcoin has been the best performing asset over the past ten years and ether has been one of the top performing assets over the past five years. Ethereum also provides investors with access to “smart contracts,” and is the driving force behind non-fungible tokens (NFTs), tokenomics, tokenization, decentralised finance and decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs).
CEO of 21Shares Hany Rashwan says: “We’re so incredibly excited to be able to offer the first direct exposure Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in Australia. Australian investors clearly want and deserve an affordable, easy, and professional way to access the growing crypto asset class and we’re delighted to continue building accessible bridges into the crypto world. We’re starting with Bitcoin and Ethereum but have even more exciting plans for Australian investors.”
Both the EBTC and EETH will go live on the Cboe Exchange on 27 April.
They will join a number of other locally-listed, crypto-related ETFs including the BetaShares Crypto Innovators ETF listed on the ASX (CRYP), and the Cosmos Global Digital Miners Access ETF listed on Cboe (code: DIGA).
