Hong Kong’s securities regulator has followed the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s lead by approving spot-bitcoin exchange-traded funds on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, adding to bullish momentum for the world's largest cryptocurrency.
The SEC’s approval in January preceded over $12 billion of net cash inflows into newly launched ETF products from the likes of BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), VanEck, Fidelity and Grayscale. This in turn has supported bitcoin’s 57% year-to-date rally.
British watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority also moved to approve bitcoin ETNs (exchange-traded notes) in March.
Tim Bevan, chief executive at ETC Group, said: “Hong Kong approving spot ETFs soon after the announcement of the LSE reiterates the global ripple effect of the spot ETF approvals in the US.
“This is further confirmation that bitcoin is now an established investable asset amongst the traditional finance community globally and will create further demand pressure over time.”
Bevan said that bitcoin may continue to see some short-term volatility around the upcoming Halving events, but “we expect to see target price revisions for 2025 well in excess of $100k”.
The BTC/USD pair is up 1.5% to $66,643 at the time of writing, having added 2.7% on Sunday.
The recovery follows a bruising 15% dip in the two days prior.
Bitcoin’s year-to-date performance – Source: tradingview.com
Ethereum (ETH) also recovered from an end-of-week dip against the US dollar by adding 5% on Sunday and another 3.2% this morning.
The ETH/USD pair was swapping for $3,256 at the time of writing.
In the broader altcoin space, Binance’s BNB token, Solana (SOL), Ripple (XRP), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Cardano (ADA) are all in the week-on-week red.
Global cryptocurrency market capitalisation currently stands at $2.43 trillion, with bitcoin dominance at 53.9%.
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