Australia gears up for a crypto boom as the country’s largest securities exchange is poised to list its first spot-Bitcoin ETFs by the end of 2024.
Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is anticipated to greenlight the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for the main board by the end of 2024, following the previous approvals of such financial products in the U.S. and Hong Kong.
According to a Bloomberg report, at least several issuers are already working on launching their products on ASX, including BetaShares, VanEck, and DigitalX. However, a specific timeline for the approval of spot crypto ETFs is yet to be clarified, as a spokesperson for ASX said the exchange is still engaged with multiple issuers on the matter.
Founded in 1987, ASX has an average daily turnover of AUD $4.685 billion (~$3 billion) and a market capitalization of around AUD $2.6 trillion (~$1.7 trillion), making it one of the world’s top 20 listed exchange groups, and the largest in the southern hemisphere.
In a commentary for Bloomberg, Jamie Hannah, deputy head of investments and capital markets for VanEck Australia, suggested that self-managed superannuation programs, which hold about a quarter of the country’s $2.3 trillion pension market, could emerge as key buyers of spot-crypto funds.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved multiple spot Bitcoin ETFs in early 2024 for listing on all registered national exchanges in the U.S., including the Nasdaq, NYSE, and CBOE, following a decade-long hunt for these products. A few months later, in mid-April, Hong Kong conditionally approved its first spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, positioning the city to lead Asia as the first to embrace crypto as mainstream investment instruments in the region.