CoinShares, Europe’s largest digital asset manager with over $2.9 billion in assets under management*, today announced the launch of a new physically-backed ETP, CoinShares Physical Bitcoin (Ticker: BITC). BITC will be the first product released on CoinShares’ new institutional-grade ETP platform and will launch with significant assets under management. Each unit of BITC is backed with 0.001 bitcoin at launch, providing investors with passive exposure to Bitcoin and the convenience of an exchange traded product.
BITC will initially be listed on the regulated SIX Swiss Exchange and has a base fee of 0.98%, well below the industry standard of 2%. The product is launching with over $100mn in AUM, a level that allows BITC to meet institutional and corporate baselines for investment consideration.
Head of Product, Townsend Lansing commented: “Since 2014 CoinShares has provided an effective bridge between the cryptocurrency ecosystem and traditional finance via our XBT Provider family of ETPs. BITC and its platform represent the next stage of this evolution. As the European market leader for these products, we will continue to develop investment vehicles that eliminate the boundaries prohibiting institutions from actively investing in what we believe to be the future of finance.”
CoinShares’ full suite of service offerings through its best-in-class industry partnerships allows BITC to provide investors with access to Bitcoin through a secure and transparent regulated instrument, further bridging the gap between institutional investors and digital assets. BITC is physically backed – meaning a dedicated CoinShares entity directly holds the underlying digital assets which are custodied by Komainu. Komainu is the first hybrid institutional-grade digital asset custodian designed specifically for financial service providers and blue-chip corporates. It is a joint venture between Nomura, one of the most trusted global investment banks, Ledger, the leader in digital asset security and CoinShares.
In addition to the security provided by Komainu, the CoinShares Physical product line also enjoys real-time attestation through Armanino and will be supported by a team with decades of experience in the structuring and distribution of ETPs to European investors. The team is led by Chief Revenue Officer Frank Spiteri who joined last year after previously serving as Head of Distribution for WisdomTree Europe. In addition, the CoinShares’ research department – often cited as a bellwether for the industry – will be available exclusively to clients to bring clarity and understanding to a new and complex asset class. This is unique among European ETP providers whose in-house expertise is often limited to equities, fixed income, commodities and other traditional asset classes.
