Hong Kong Establishes Its First Regulator-Approved Bitcoin Fund

Arrano Capital, the blockchain arm of asset manager Venture Smart Asia Limited operating from Hong Kong, has introduced the country’s first Bitcoin (BTC) fund with full regulatory approval.

According to the April 20 news release, Arrano Capital stated that the fund, which monitors the price of Bitcoin, offers institutional investors access to Bitcoin through a traditional fund structure.

Avaneesh Acquilla, chief investment officer of Arrano Capital, said that he hopes to launch a second actively managed fund dealing with a range of tokens later in 2020, as he sees “enormous” potential for passive and active crypto products going forward.

Detailing the reasons for launching the fund, he focused on regulations as a must for Bitcoin to gain wide recognition:

“We decided to launch this fund to address market demand from professional investors who are increasingly focused on Bitcoin as an alternative store of value. Ultimately for Bitcoin to be widely accepted and for people to trust it, there needs to be regulation.”

The fund has some notable contenders — BitGo as the custodian and Grant Thornton as its audit partner. The fund’s goal is to pass $100 million in digital assets under management within the first year, according to a Bloomberg report.

Venture Smart Asia Limited has managed to meet the conditions for a licensed crypto fund by the local Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), thus becoming the first official Bitcoin fund in the region. Other firms which have failed to meet all the SFC criteria can only market to professional investors.