Twenty-six-year-old Mr Lee has netted the support of Chinese millionaire Allan Gao, who made his fortunes through manufacturing, supplying and fitting fire-safety equipment in China. Mr Gao has funded the lion's share of the company's pre-initial public offering expenses, including legal and broking fees. Bitcoin's listing plans come at a critical time in the digital currency industry, as a Senate inquiry into the regulation of bitcoin chaired by senator Sam Dastyari opens for submissions to develop a regulatory framework around the cryptocurrency. The bitcoin industry is still seen as highly speculative and fraught with investor risk. The currency has soared as high as more than $US1000 a unit from less than $US1 just two years ago. Investors such as Virgin's Richard Branson have pumped over $US300 million into bitcoin ventures over the past 18 months.

But the industry has also suffered from major hacking incidents, including the fall of Mt Gox that filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. Bitcoin Group is no stranger to controversy after it lost 100 bitcoins, worth about $70,000, after a hacking incident last month. In August, the Australian Taxation Office defined bitcoin as an "intangible asset" – rejecting the industry's calls for it to be categorised as a currency. As a result, businesses that accept bitcoin will have to fork out goods and services taxes, while customers who use them will also have to pay GST on the Australian dollar value of the transaction. "How the ATO envisages taxing bitcoin is by far the most, all encompassing and flexible in the world," Mr Lee said. While there have been several backdoor listings of bitcoin companies on the ASX – bitcoin trading house digitalBTC reverse took over Macro Energy at the beginning of the year – Bitcoin Group wants to start from scratch. "It's a cleanskin listing," Mr Lee said. "We're not doing a reverse listing because we only want people who believe in us, instead of having a whole lot of baggage along for the ride.

"Australia is more advanced than the US and listing on the main board of the ASX will help legitimise, not only ourselves, but the industry as well." Bitcoin Group stressed that its strategy of managing an arbitrage fund was short term and as more market-makers became involved, returns would shrink. "This space might be niche at the moment, but it doesn't look like it's going to be niche in the long run," said Mr Lee. The company's prospectus will be lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission on October 22, and the offer will open on October 29. "In all industries that resemble the Wild West there are some bad players, every new industry goes through that, whether it be the internet in the early days or the introduction of search engines," Mr Lee said.

Bitcoin Group's listing, if successful, will be closely followed by the closure of the Senate inquiry's call for submissions into bitcoin regulation on November 28. The inquiry's findings are due to be reported in March. "We want to see Australia be a world leader in developing regulation in this space," Senator Dastyari said.