Canada to lead Middle East's first listed crypto fund

Investment fund management firm 3iQ has received regulatory clearance for a dual listing of the BitcoinFund on Nasdaq. The listing would come at a time when Bitcoin has surpassed its highest point on record by touching $60,000 before falling in recent days to $54,500. The development would make the Canadian firm the first cryptocurrency index fund in the Middle East. 

According to 3iQ's president and chief executive Frederick Pye, the shares are expected to begin trading on Nasdaq in the second quarter as, according to the chairman, "the time is right to expand this unique investment opportunity in the Middle East". The fund would be part of an extension of the listing made last April on the Toronto Stock Exchange when it proclaimed itself as "the world's first regulated and listed Bitcoin fund".

Pye also said that discussions are underway to further expand the market with exchanges in Singapore, Taiwan, Sweden and the United States. The Bitcoin Fund is expected to be listed on these markets in order for the cryptocurrency to expand and enter different international markets. In this sense, the president stated that "the idea is for Bitcoin to be traded 24 hours a day, so that our interest would be to bring a regulated product to the Dubai market during its hours".

Despite cryptocurrency price rises in recent days, a senior official at the Dalma Capital platform believes that Bitcoin as an asset is not going to disappear as "the recent price rise is due less to retail purchases and more to a growing institutional allocation to Bitcoin as a store of value". To this, Dalma Capital Management managing director Zachary Cefaratti said that "institutional investors, including sovereign wealth funds, have shown great interest in the listing". 

Since listing in Toronto in April, the Bitcoin Fund has reached a size of $1.37 billion. According to 3iQ, the listing in Dubai allows new investors exposure to an "asset class that has experienced exceptional appreciation over the past decade".

Up to this point, the Bitcoin movement in the UAE and other Gulf countries has been led by individual investors. However, some family offices have taken positions in the asset. Now it remains to be seen what the future of cryptocurrencies will hold, since according to different economists experts see the cryptocurrency as an obsolete medium due to the fact that the supply of Bitcoins is asymptotically fixed, not responding to the growing demand and need for supply of this currency. In this respect, the Bitcoin-based economy would lead to permanent deflation with significant economic consequences for investors, entrepreneurs and future growth.