Following an earlier approval by the region’s regulator, spot Bitcoin and Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) finally hit the Hong Kong markets in the early hours of today. However, despite the anticipation that greeted their listing, the combined trading volume for the six new crypto ETFs on day one was 87.58 million Hong Kong dollars ($12 million).
Notably, the figure pales in comparison to the trading volume that U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded on their first day of trading. In January, spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States set an exceptionally high bar with a first-day trading volume of $4.6 billion.
HKEX Shares Hong Kong Bitcoin and Ether ETFs Day-1 Performance
According to data shared by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX), the six spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs performed relatively flat, suggesting that investor interest in the products is considerably low at the moment.
Of the pack, the China Asset Management (CAM) Bitcoin ETF and Ether ETFs fared better, with each recording 4.6 million HK$ in trading volume. The Bosera HashKey Bitcoin ETF had quite the slow start with 249,000 HK$ in its first-day trading volume. Similarly, the Bosera HashKey Ether ETF also put up a lukewarm performance, recording 99,000 HK$ in trading volume on the day.
High Optimism for Hong Kong’s Spot ETF Market
Meanwhile, despite having such a slow start, experts believe that there is a huge growth potential for Hong Kong’s spot ETF market. For instance, local crypto giant HashKey Group expects the size of Hong Kong spot crypto ETF market to reach 20% of the U.S. spot ETF market within a year.
Han Tongli, CEO of Harvest Global Investments, also believes that Hong Kong’s market size may even surpass that of the U.S. As Reuters claims in a recent report, Tongli believes that Hong Kong is better positioned to attract more investors from both the West and East.
Moreover, local fund managers and brokerages are also offering fee exemptions to lure investors to the new crypto ETFs. Harvest, for instance, is offering a management fee waiver for six months while Borsera is also extending a similar waiver of four months.
Interestingly, the crypto ETFs may later be made available to mainland Chinese investors. That is in the event that the products prove to be risk controllable.
