Brazil-headquartered Hashdex, a digital assets investment manager, has made its debut in Europe with the launch of an ETP providing diversified exposure to the largest and most liquid cryptocurrencies.
The Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index Europe ETP has been listed on SIX Swiss Exchange in US dollars (HASH SW), euros (HASHEUR SW), pound sterling (HASHGBP SW), and Swiss francs (HASHCHF SW).
The ETP tracks the Nasdaq Crypto Index Europe, developed in partnership with Nasdaq, which was designed to be broadly representative of the investable cryptocurrency market for institutional investors.
To be eligible for inclusion, a cryptocurrency must have a free-floating price, trade in US dollars, and meet minimum liquidity standards. It must also be traded on at least two ‘core exchanges’, be supported by at least one ‘core custodians’, and be eligible to underlie an ETP listed on SIX Swiss Exchange or Xetra.
The list of ‘core exchanges’ and ‘core custodians’ is determined by Nasdaq’s Crypto Index Oversight Committee on an annual basis.
Eligible cryptocurrencies are weighted by float-adjusted market capitalization, while any cryptocurrency that represents less than 0.5% of the total index weight is removed. Reconstitution and rebalancing occur on a quarterly basis.
According to Nasdaq, the methodology ensures that the index targets only the most liquid and mature cryptocurrency markets while remaining adaptable to add new assets as the segment evolves.
The index currently includes eight cryptocurrencies: bitcoin (60.0%), ethereum (28.9%), solana (4.3%), cardano (3.0%), avalanche (1.8%), polygon (0.8%), litecoin (0.7%), and polkadot (0.5%).
The ETP is 100% backed by ‘physical’ holdings of the underlying cryptocurrencies which are held in institutional-grade cold storage by Coinbase.
It comes with an expense ratio of 1.49%.
Marcelo Sampaio, co-Founder and CEO of Hashdex, said: “This launch is a major milestone for Hashdex as we continue to deliver on our mission of providing global investors with access to the crypto asset class. With our strong European team, coupled with our experienced global team and our deep international relationship with Nasdaq, we are well-positioned to offer investors simple, secure, and regulated products that allow them to gain diversified exposure to the crypto ecosystem.”
Laurent Kssis, Managing Director and Head of Europe at Hashdex, added: “Capturing the performance in crypto assets using a financial instrument like an ETP can be highly challenging for institutional investors as many existing products have been based on single-asset crypto exposure and that does not answer their investment objectives in a conventional portfolio allocation. We believe we have represented exactly what investors have been demanding by offering a product with diversified exposure that mitigates risk in crypto assets.”