The London Stock Exchange’s embrace of crypto securities went up a gear today after the world’s largest issuer of crypto exchange-traded products added four new listings in the UK.
21Shares, which launched the world’s first physically backed crypto exchange-traded notes in 2018, has listed the four Bitcoin and Ethereum ETNs in London, marking the firm’s entrance into the UK market in the latest step on its global expansion.
Co-founder Hany Rashwan told the Standard: “The UK has been on our list since the very beginning and was one of the first three markets we had conversations with when we started.
“As the UK has started warming up to crypto investments we have had very positive engagement with the regulators and we hope to use London as a base to attract global investors.”
The listings follow a decision by the UK’s financial watchdog to permit cryptoasset exchange traded notes amid a softening in stance towards the securities, which it said was because “increased insight and data due to a longer period of trading history” meant that “investors should now be able to better establish whether CETNs meet their risk appetite.”
However, the FCA has so far restricted trading of the CETNs to professional investors because it said they are “ill-suited for retail consumers due to the harm they pose.”“We’ve seen a lot of institutional interest including professional traders, family offices and in some cases pension funds and insurance companies [but] we want to work with regulators to expand to as many people as possible,” Rashwan said.
