According to the recently published Bloomberg piece, BlackRock has brought a new cryptocurrency product to the European market as it has launched a Bitcoin ETP (exchange-traded product) there.
BlackRock brings Bitcoin ETP to Europe
BlackRock’s fund iShares which launched the spot Bitcoin ETF IBIT in January last year now plans to list a new Bitcoin ETP the ticker name IB1T on Xetra and Euronext Paris. The new product will also be listed in the Netherlands on Euronext Amsterdam as BTCN, said Bloomberg, citing BlackRock’s statement.
The new Bitcoin product for exchanges will offer a temporary fee discount of 10% with a lower expense ratio until the end of 2025. This is the very first step taken by BlackRock to expand its crypto ETP product range outside the US after the success of the spot Bitcoin ETF.
IBIT is the largest spot BTC ETF, holding roughly half a million Bitcoin valued at approximately $48 billion. When it was launched in January last year, it quickly gained traction and began attracting billions of US dollars every month.
Even though, there have been ETPs linked to cryptocurrencies already trading in Europe for several years, the local market is much smaller compared to the US – $13.6 billion versus $105 billion assets under management.
The largest crypto ETP in Europe is so far run by CoinShares International Ltd with $1.3 billion in Bitcoin under management, and it charges a 0.25% fee. So far, until the end of the year, BlackRock will be offering a much cheaper fee of 0.15%.
As for spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US, last week, they witnessed almost $800 million in netflows with BlackRock scoring the largest one of 6,342.47 BTC worth $535,582,902.
