Spectrum Markets, the pan-European trading venue for securities saw a surge in overnight activity on products “linked to bitcoin, in the hours following the SEC’s announcement approving the first spot bitcoin ETF.”
The volume of bitcoin-linked instruments “traded on Spectrum Wednesday was five times higher than the daily average for the preceding three months, with the hours between 22:00 and 23:00 CET accounting for nearly 29% of this activity.”
Typically trading on bitcoin-linked instruments “during these hours accounts for around 8%.”
Spectrum Markets was the first regulated trading venue “to make bitcoin-linked derivatives available on a pan-European basis, 24 hours a day and five days a week, something that is particularly important for what is a volatile, around-the-clock asset.”
Michael Hall, Head of Distribution at Spectrum Markets, said:
“Investors have waited a long time for this news, and were very quick to respond, taking advantage of our 24-hour trading to react immediately to the SEC’s announcement. We continue to see there are retail investors across Europe that have an appetite for investing in bitcoin, but want to do so within a regulated environment.”
As noted in the update:
“In this vein, we welcome the SEC’s decision, as enabling US investors to access bitcoin via a highly-regulated and transparent wrapper like an ETF, responds to this increasingly widespread desire for greater regulatory protection for the asset class. In the EU, a Bitcoin ETF is still not possible under existing regulation as UCITS does not allow a single reference price for an ETF underlying. To stay competitive with the US, the EU would benefit from a similar change in rule as to avoid European flows being executed abroad.”
Perhaps surprisingly or unexpectedly, the BTC price surged to over $49,000 shortly after Bitcoin spot ETF approvals by the SEC but then the cryptocurrency also began to quickly lose value, and it is trading at around $42,000 at the time of writing. Although analysts were expecting a lot of volatility, it is still hard to predict exactly where Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital asset prices will go from here.
