Australia’s first spot Bitcoin ETF to go live on Tuesday

The Monochrome Bitcoin ETF will begin trading on the Cboe Australia exchange. 

The ETF, listed as IBTC, will have a management fee of 0.98%. Monochrome Asset Management, the issuer, provides the fund to allow investors to access Bitcoin within a regulated framework. 

This framework, overseen by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC), ensures investor protection and compliance with financial regulations. 

The company stated that investors have legal rights to their Bitcoin (BTC) in the fund and can request withdrawals. This is the first and only ETF that holds Bitcoin directly in Australia. Cboe will be the first exchange in Australia to offer a Bitcoin ETF, ahead of the ASX, which also aims to approve spot Bitcoin ETFs by the end of the year.

The spot ETF is crafted to mirror BTC market prices, withstand manipulation, and be validated by market participants. Monochrome collaborates with the crypto exchange Gemini as its custodian for Bitcoin.

A spot crypto ETF tracks the price of a specific crypto and invests portfolio funds into that crypto. These funds are traded on public exchanges but generally track a particular crypto. Like similar funds, crypto ETFs are on regular stock exchanges, and investors can keep them in their standard brokerage accounts.

Bitcoin ETF adoption

This spot ETF announcement comes at a positive time for the crypto industry, especially from a political and global perspective. 

In early 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission gave the green light for several spot Bitcoin ETFs to be listed on all registered national exchanges in the U.S.

In mid-April, Hong Kong conditionally authorized its initial spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, setting the stage for the city to take the lead in Asia as the first to adopt crypto as a main investment.

The U.S. House of Representatives also passed the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), communicating with the crypto industry that the United States is welcome to crypto.