According to Bloomberg, Hong Kong-based financial services company Venture Smart Financial plans to launch a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the first quarter. The company aims to increase its assets under management to $500 million by the end of the year.
Venture Smart Financial Could Launch Spot Bitcoin ETF Anytime Soon
Venture Smart Financial, claiming to be Hong Kong’s first licensed digital asset management company, has not yet submitted an ETF application to the city’s financial regulator, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), but is expected to submit a spot ETF application to the regulator shortly.
As is known, the SFC announced in December 2023 that it was ready to accept applications for crypto-based ETFs in China’s special administrative region and published two circulars addressing the requirements for launching such investment products. Moreover, the region implemented a crypto licensing regime for crypto trading platforms in June 2023, hoping to become Asia’s renewed crypto hub. Currently, there are three crypto-based futures ETFs listed on the exchange in Hong Kong: Samsung Bitcoin BTC Futures, CSOP Bitcoin Futures, and CSOP Ether Futures.
The managing director of HashKey, Hong Kong’s first licensed crypto exchange, Livio Weng, said earlier this month that about ten fund companies in the region started exploring the option to launch and trade crypto-based spot ETFs.
Bitcoin’s Price Drops After SEC’s Spot ETF Approval
After the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gave the green light to 11 spot ETFs on January 10, US spot Bitcoin ETFs have since reached over $13 billion in cumulative trading volume. Despite the significant increase in cumulative trading volume, the price of the largest cryptocurrency fell with the waning excitement surrounding the ETF approval.
CoinMarketCap data shows that Bitcoin’s price is on a downward trend and was trading around $41,300 at the time this article was prepared. According to the data, BTC’s price has fallen by 10.10 percent over the last 7 days.
