Fidelity launches physical bitcoin ETP in Europe

Fidelity launches physical bitcoin ETP in Europe

Fidelity International has launched a physical bitcoin exchange traded product in response to a growing demand for digital assets among European investors.

The product launch comes three months after Invesco brought its own bitcoin ETP to the market amid a growing willingness by large asset managers to enter the cryptocurrency arena.

Fidelity’s Physical Bitcoin ETP, which will be available to professional and institutional investors in Europe, is domiciled in Germany and listed on Xetra in Frankfurt. The product will start trading on Zurich’s Six in the coming weeks.

Fidelity Digital Assets, the digital assets arm of US-based Fidelity Investments, will act as custodian for the ETP.

Nick King, head of exchange traded funds at the $813bn asset manager, said the launch was an “important evolution” in his company’s ETP offering and the first step in its “digital assets product capability”.

The ETP has an ongoing charges figure of 0.75 per cent and launched with about $6mn of assets.

Christian Staub, managing director for Europe at Fidelity, said the ETP’s “underlying distributed ledger technology has the potential to revolutionise the financial system over time and disrupt many parts of the financial world with profound implications for investors”.

A recent survey conducted by Fidelity Digital Assets showed that 70