By George Ward
With Bitcoin having a good start in 2022 after surpassing the $18K price level, Samsung Asset Management is considering launching a spot BTC ETF on the Hong Kong Exchange. However, this will depend on the exchange’s policies regarding spot crypto ETFs.
Samsung Eyeing spot-BTC ETF
On January 13th, Sam Park, the CEO of SAM in Hong Kong, announced in an interview with the news platform Bloomberg. Park said, “this launch would depend on how policies are developed.”
According to him, Hong Kong officials are “clearly” focused on turning the city into a hub for cryptocurrency. Meanwhile, Rebecca Sin, one of Bloomberg’s ETF analysts, believes Hong Kong has a better chance of becoming the crypto gateway in Asia than other countries.
Sin noted that Hong Kong might endorse BTC and ETH products before the end of 2023. In a spot market, financial instruments are exchanged and settled immediately; in a futures market, buyers and sellers enter into contracts to pay at another date.
On January 13th, the global giant launched its BTC futures ETF on Hong Kong Clearing Market and Exchanges. Besides, the Hong Kong Exchange is the only regulated entity that supports BTC futures ETF trades in Asia. At the time of writing, Samsung’s BTC futures ETF has recorded a price increase of about 4.2%.
In addition to the Hong Kong futures ETF, there has been considerable interest in other similar ETFs. Specifically, two ETFs under the management of CSOP Asset Management have attracted significant investments, with a total of $73.6 million raised before their listing on December 16th.
Hong Kong, A Better Market For ETFs Than The US?
Yi Wang, a CSOP executive, argued that ETFs are not physical investments in Bitcoin. Also, Wang further said that ETFs are regulatory safeguards to invest in crypto and are better than coins traded on unlicensed exchanges.
On January 5th, Yat Siu, the chairman of Animoca Brands, had a Twitter Space session with Bloomberg Asia. According to Siu, the possibility of listing in Hong Kong is more favorable than in the United States.
“The US was once a good market for ETFs before now. However, places such as Asia, especially Hong Kong, are becoming more attractive for such products due to their digital asset policies […] Also, they are fighting to become a leader in the crypto space,” Siu added.
Furthermore, the lack of regulatory guidelines and clarity is one primary reason most crypto companies are leaving the US.