After what can only be described as a miserable few weeks for crypto markets. bitcoin has had some respite, posting an impressive 8.72% gain in the past 24 hours, with $2.59 billion traded across bitcoin markets, according to data from CryptoCompare.
There has been a flurry of positive developments in the past week, culminating with some positive news coming from the Consensus Invest conference this week in New York. Most of the significant announcements signal clarity and confidence from institutions building cryptoasset financial products.
VanEck – the investment management firm and one of the largest ETP providers in the world – alongside their index provider MVIS have been at the forefront of many of the announcements.
Nasdaq Bitcoin Futures
CryptoGlobe reported on Tuesday that Nasdaq still plans to launch bitcoin futures despite a delay in the release schedule. Gabor Gurbacs, Director for Digital Asset Strategy at VanEck/MVIS, announced at Consensus Invest that VanEck is partnered with Nasdaq to “bring a regulated crypto 2.0 futures-type contract” to market.
@Nasdaq and VanEck’s @MVISIndices announces #index #partnership and intention to bring to market transparent, regulated and surveilled #DigitalAssets products, such as #Bitcoin futures contracts. More info to come. Share & follow us. #crypto #futures #SMARTS #ConsensusInvest pic.twitter.com/Q2oCZx4pp1
— Gabor Gurbacs (@gaborgurbacs) November 27, 2018
Cryptoasset data provider CryptoCompare will provide data for the new futures contracts in partnership with VanEck’s subsidiary MVIS (MV Index Solutions).
SEC on Bitcoin ETF
SEC Chair, Jay Clayton was interviewed at Consensus Invest where he shed light on the highly anticipated Bitcoin ETF proposed by VanEck. Mr Clayton was skeptical whether the Bitcoin ETF would be approved until there the underlying markets were “free from the risk or significant risk of manipulation.”
In an effort to quell fears of price manipulation, VanEck recently announced that their Bitcoin ETF price index would use data from three of the largest Bitcoin OTC markets – Cumberland, Genesis Trading and Circle Trade – as they believe this index will be less susceptible to market manipulation.
World’s First Multi-Asset Crypto Index ETP Launched
The Amun Crypto Basket ETP started trading on the Swiss Six exchange last week and it appears to have been received well by the market.
The ETP tracks the price of 4 cryptoassets – bitcoin, ether, XRP and litecoin – backed with an index provided by MVIS. Currently the ETP is trading over $400,000 a day which, although small compared to the larger american ETPs, ranks highly in the Swiss ETP markets.
Su Zhu, an FX hedge fund CEO, noted that a high proportion of investors are using the ETP to hold and not trade. He also sees the HODL5 ETP as a ‘barometer of natural interest’.
Swiss HODL ETF update: a very high % of the volume is net inflow. 27,244 shares on 23-nov led to 20,000 shares being created, and 16,727 shares on 26-nov led to 15,000 shares being created. This means users are holding, not trading–so this is a 400k USD a day fiat onramp. https://t.co/0WydLSKTJK
— Su Zhu (@zhusu) November 28, 2018
Senior market analyst at eToro, Mati Greenspan, saw the positve reception of the HODL5 ETP as a sign of insitutional interest:
The new Swiss crypto ETP is now one of the most popular products on Switzerland's primary stock exchange…Let there be no questions, institutions are here!
