VanEck, the investment management fund, has launched a Bitcoin-backed exchange-traded product after spending much of 2019 unsuccessfully lobbying to get its exchange-traded fund (ETF) approved by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
It has been reported by a tweet from the company’s digital asset strategist Gabor Gurbacs, the product is an exchange-traded note rather than an ETF, and is listed not on a US exchange, but Germany’s Deutsche Börse Xetra.
1) Today @vaneck_eu launched a #Bitcoin #ETN. The ETN is physically-backed by Bitcoin and listed on Deutsche Böerse Xetra. Launching a Bitcoin ETP was a top priority for VanEck. We succeeded! VanEck hopes to serve many in Europe and Asia! Resource page: https://t.co/oRpVOQyby2 pic.twitter.com/xnCnTWqMrG — Gabor Gurbacs (@gaborgurbacs) November 25, 2020
However, an ETN is essentially a debt instrument tracking a sometimes hard-to-access market, which in this instance is Bitcoin (BTC) rather than being a mutual fund.
The report said that the VanEck Vectors Bitcoin ETN is 100% backed by physical Bitcoin and offers investors direct exposure to the Bitcoin market in the trusted format of other regulated exchange-listed products.
Investment management firm, @vaneck_eu finally gets a #Bitcoin ETP listed… and not an @SEC_Enforcement in sight https://t.co/0pAfKDCGga — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) November 25, 2020
Dominik Poiger, the Product Manager, said:
“Our Bitcoin ETN is fully collateralized. This means that the money invested in the ETN is actually used to buy Bitcoin. In this way, each ETN represents a certain amount of Bitcoin.”
Likewise, the Bitcoin will be deposited and held in cold storage by Liechtenstein-based crypto custodian Bank Frick.
Thus, VanEck put a lot of effort into trying to persuade the SEC to approve its Bitcoin ETF throughout the first part of 2019, but to no avail, and the Chicago Board Options Exchange withdrew the proposal in September, a month before the final decision was due.
Source: Cointelegraph | Image: CoinGenius