After the launch of short Bitcoin (SBTC) ETP on Boerse Stuttgart, Germany’s second-largest stock exchange, the crypto trading product is now available on Xetra. This is a significant breakthrough for 21 Shares, which has already tasted success with eleven other institutional-grade crypto exchange-traded products.
Germany is Europe’s economic powerhouse.
Back in February, when 21 Shares announced the launch of their Short Bitcoin (SBTC) ETP on Boerse Stuttgart, it was unprecedented news that further brought Bitcoin to the attention of mainstream market players and institutional investors.
According to an official release, 21 Shares have registered another milestone. The Swiss fintech firm announced the receipt of CCP clearance to list SBTC on Deutsche Boerse Xetra. Xetra is a trading venue operated by the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
This comes two months after 21 Shares “dual-listed the world’s first Bitcoin ETP (ABTC) on Deutsche Boerse Xetra, allowing further international investors to gain exposure to this nascent but novel asset class via a familiar ETP structure.”
As per 21 Shares, SBTC is a Bitcoin investment vehicle that allows investors to bet on BTC’s inverse price action. That makes it the ‘world’s first centrally cleared short Bitcoin product’.
According to the firm, inverse price exposure holds several benefits for investors.
Traded on regulated markets, investors can buy and sell the ETP intraday, in the same way they would when trading conventional shares with the identical regulatory protections in place.
Mainstream financial investors and traders always look for ‘licensed’ products to plug their funds in products listed on regulated platforms. 21 Shares confirmed that a CCP clearance would ‘greatly reduce counterparty risk’ for trading the short Bitcoin ETP.
Commenting on SBTC’s listing on Xetra, Laurent Kssis, Managing Director at 21Shares in charge of the application with Deutsche Boerse, said:
We have lobbied carefully but vigorously with the exchange to be in a position to launch the world’s first centrally cleared short Bitcoin ETP on a regulated trading venue. The one missing trading product was to deliver a fully transparent financial instrument to capitalize on negative price movements within a complete regulated framework.
This latest development has now placed 21 Shares on the mainstream financial markets map in Germany.
Investors can but all it’s crypto ETPs through a bank or broker with access to the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. This means that they don’t have to head to cryptocurrency exchanges to invest in crypto assets. This according to the Swiss firm will insulate them from uncertainties as
lack of internal controls and financial structures lacking integrity which resulted in higher spreads, increased counterparty risk and large price premiums
21 Shares believe that the listing of this ‘centrally cleared Short Bitcoin ETP’ will boost mainstream investment interest in cryptocurrencies.
But from the outset, SBTC’s investment arrangement appears far too centralized. Which is totally opposite to the ‘cryptocurrency ethos’ isn’t it?