• Venture Smart Financial Holdings plans to debut a spot Bitcoin ETF in Hong Kong early this year.
• In December, Hong Kong outlined the requirements for licensed firms to launch spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Venture Smart Financial Holdings, which touts itself as Hong Kong’s first approved virtual asset manager, is gearing up to launch its spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the first quarter of this year, striving for $500 million in assets under management by the end of 2024, as per Bloomberg. 

Hong Kong introduced its crypto licensing regime for trading platforms in June 2023, seeking to regain its position as Asia’s cryptocurrency hub. Following that, in December 2023, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), the city’s financial regulator, opened the door for spot crypto ETF applications and provided guidelines for launching such products. Notably, the region already hosts three crypto futures ETFs—Samsung Bitcoin Futures, CSOP Bitcoin Futures, and CSOP Ether Futures.

The move by Venture Smart follows the trend of spot crypto ETFs gaining attention, especially after the launch of Bitcoin funds by prominent issuers like BlackRock. and Fidelity Investments in the US. However, Venture Smart Financial Holdings has not yet submitted an ETF application to the SFC.

Despite Bitcoin’s significant surge at the start of the year in anticipation of the Bitcoin ETF products, it has experienced a 16% dip since the commencement of trading on January 11 as investors assess the level of capital attracted by these vehicles.