VanEck’s Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) is now trading on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), the country’s main stock market.
The VanEck fund (ticker symbol: VBTC) is the first spot Bitcoin ETF to launch on the Australian stock exchange as demand for cryptocurrency investment vehicles rises worldwide.
The VanEck fund rose 1% in its first day of trading, closing at $20.06 Australian dollars ($13.40 U.S.) per share. In all, 99,791 shares of the ETF changed hands.
The ETF tracks the price movements of Bitcoin without requiring investors to hold the digital asset in a cryptocurrency wallet.
The VanEck Bitcoin ETF launches in Australia six months after similar products were listed in the U.S., and seven weeks after they debuted on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
A separate Bitcoin ETF from Monochrome Asset Management went live on June 4, but it trades on the smaller Cboe exchange, which is a rival of the main Australian stock market.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. have attracted more than $20 billion U.S. of capital since launching at the end of January this year.
