VanEck will offer the Bitcoin ETN to customers and partners in Europe and Asia. This is the third Bitcoin derivative to be launched on the German exchange Deutsche Börse Xetra.
New York-based investment management company VanEck launched a publicly-traded product backed by bitcoins. It is an ETN (exchange-traded note) or market negotiable note, which is listed on the German stock exchange Deutsche Börse Xetra.
In a tweet published on November 25, VanEck’s director of digital assets, Gabor Gurbacs, confirmed the launch of the Bitcoin VanEck Vectors (VBTC) ETN and assured that the company will offer the sale of the product to its customers and partners in Europe and Asia.
The company guarantees its users that the euros invested in the ETN will be used to buy bitcoins. The VanEck team adds that the performance of the ETN is directly related to the price of the cryptocurrency. It takes as a reference the MVIS CryptoCompare of the Bitcoin VWAP Close Index.
Van Eck insists on investing in bitcoin, despite SEC rejection
The launch of the VanEck ETN comes a year after the proposal for the VanEck / SolidX Bitcoin Listed Investment Fund (ETF) was withdrawn. The withdrawal occurred a month before the date scheduled for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to make the final review. Before that, the US supervisor rejected the New York-based company’s applications at least three times since 2017.
The refusal was ongoing on other similar projects, so no ETF proposal has ever received SEC approval. The body cites as important issues for its decision the concern about market manipulation, its vigilance, and some possible divergences regarding future negotiations.
Given the refusal of the SEC, everything indicates that VanEck chose to go to the European market to consolidate its plan, although instead of an ETF it chose an ETN. Unlike ETNs, ETFs are mutual funds that are part of the list on the stock exchange, whose stocks and bonds can be bought and sold for a session at the existing price on the stock market.
Gurbacs says that the company is committed to supporting bitcoin-centric financial innovation. For this reason, bringing to the market a derivative “that is listed on a major stock exchange and that is fully supported” has been one of the company’s priorities. It shows VanEck’s great interest in the pioneering cryptocurrency, which it defines as “digital gold”.
“The low correlation with other asset classes makes bitcoin a great way to help diversify a portfolio,” said Martijn Rozemuller, VanEck Europe Director. “We will offer investors a product that will allow them to benefit from the performance of the cryptocurrency”.
Bitcoin ETPs can be launched on the Frankfurt city-based Xetra platform since the cryptocurrency embraced the approval from German financial regulator BaFin earlier this year.
With this VanEck ETN, there are three Bitcoin ETPs included in Xetra. The first was ETC Group, a traded commodity exchange that, since June of this year, operates in a similar way to the ETC of raw materials suffer trades on the exchange. The second is ETN 21Shares, launched in September 2020.
By: Jenson Nuñez.
