Harvest Fund submits application for first Bitcoin ETF in Hong Kong, to be launched as soon as after the Spring Festival

Source: Tencent News "First Line", author: Liao Feifei

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission will finally take a more substantial step in digital currency.

Tencent News "First Line" exclusively learned that last Friday (January 26), Harvest Fund Hong Kong Company had submitted Bitcoin Spot Exchange Traded Funds (Exchange Traded Funds, for short) to the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission. ETF) application. This is the first institution in Hong Kong to submit a Bitcoin spot ETF application.

In this regard, Harvest Fund said it would not comment for the time being.

Tencent News "First Line" learned that the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission hopes to speed up the approval of the first Hong Kong Bitcoin spot ETF. It is planned that the first Hong Kong spot Bitcoin ETF will be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange after the Spring Festival.

This is only two weeks after the US Securities Regulatory Commission approved the first batch of US Bitcoin spot ETFs on January 11. Tencent News "First Line" learned that the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission also began to accelerate the progress after approving this type of ETF in the United States.

Data shows that among the 27 Bitcoin spot ETFs in the United States, the size of GBTC under Grayscale Bitcoin Trust is US$20.2 billion. GBTC was converted from a previous closed-end fund when the US Securities Regulatory Commission approved the ETF. The Bitcoin spot ETF, then worth nearly $30 billion, has declined as Bitcoin prices have fallen. In addition, there are two companies with a scale close to US$2 billion, namely IBIT, a subsidiary of BlackRock, with a scale of more than US$1.8 billion, and BITO, a subsidiary of Proshare, with a scale of US$1.78 billion. Following closely behind is FBTC, a subsidiary of Fidelity Fund with a scale of US$1.6 billion.

Tencent News "First Line" learned that the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission may follow the practice of the United States, which is to approve applications from several companies at once. As of now, apart from Harvest Fund, no other institution has submitted an application. Although institutions including CSOP have communicated with the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission many times, they have not submitted it yet.

Hong Kong fund professionals analyzed Tencent News' "First Line" and said that judging from the performance of the U.S. Bitcoin spot ETF, even if the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission approves multiple institutions at one time, it may end up performing about the same as the U.S. market, that is, Finally, the scale of spot ETFs from large institutions such as BlackRock and Fidelity Fund has grown faster. This is because the original investor base of these large institutions is wide enough and the channels for acquiring customers are much more abundant.

According to ETF Data, BlackRock’s IBIT now ranks third in size among the more than 600 ETFs of all types issued in the United States in the past year. This shows that spot ETFs are more attractive to investors than other types of ETFs.

Some family office investment managers in Hong Kong told Tencent News "First Line" that before this, due to the complexity of investment categories and operations, they did not directly participate in the investment in the Bitcoin market, but they are very interested in Hong Kong. There is great interest in subscribing to spot ETFs. However, they also said that there may be some gap between the scale of Hong Kong spot ETF subscriptions and the United States.

Tencent News "First Line" also learned that compared with spot ETFs in the United States, in addition to accepting legal currency subscriptions, Hong Kong's spot ETFs may also increase the possibility of direct Bitcoin subscriptions. However, as of press time, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission could not be contacted for comment.