Bitcoin ETP chief says institutional investors and ‘access products’ are key to supporting the price

Bitcoin ETP chief says institutional investors and ‘access products’ are key to supporting the price

Account active since Duke and ETC's fortunes have been propelled by the huge surge in the bitcoin price. It has risen more than 280% over the last year to $32, 284 on Friday morning. Bitcoin hit an all-time high of close to $42, 000 earlier this month before sliding last week. Retail investors, and even now some institutions, have rushed towards products such as the Exchange Traded Crypto (known as the BTCetc or BTCE), which tracks the price of bitcoin and is listed on the German XETRA and Swiss Six exchanges. Duke says the fund had around $475 million in assets under management two weeks ago (although the figure will have fallen last week along with bitcoin), having only launched in June last year. And the product's trading volumes rival those of Europe's biggest exchange-traded funds: In the first week of the year, volumes averaged around €50. 4 million ($61. 2 million) a day, according to Deutsche Boerse data, and hit a record daily high of €92. 6 million on January 11. Bradley Duke is chief executive of ETC Group, which runs the Bitcoin Exchange Traded Crypto product ETC Group "It is fantastic that we did manage to catch this