Switzerland's FINMA Approves First Spot Bitcoin ETF for Retail Investors

Switzerland’s financial regulator FINMA has approved the first Swiss-law exchange-traded fund giving retail investors direct exposure to Bitcoin $BTC. BIT Asset Management announced Thursday that its Bitcoin Fund ETF (BBIT) is expected to begin trading on SIX Swiss Exchange in November, with its public offering restricted exclusively to Switzerland. Unlike most European Bitcoin products structured as exchange-traded debt instruments carrying issuer risk, the fund operates as a Swiss collective investment scheme where underlying Bitcoin holdings are held separately from the management company and ring-fenced for investors. FINMA classified the vehicle under Switzerland’s "other funds for alternative investments" category with particular risk and noted that additional fund providers have also submitted applications for Bitcoin ETFs. Although the regulator has permitted funds investing primarily in baskets of cryptocurrencies since 2021, this is its first approval of a single-asset Bitcoin fund, citing Bitcoin's trading history and higher trading volume relative to other digital assets while warning that the asset remains highly volatile. “Most bitcoin products listed in Europe today are exchange-traded products (ETPs), which are debt instruments that carry issuer risk,” — BIT Asset Management.