Quote from: Hydrogen on July 06, 2018, 03:46:36 AM

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Europe's largest trader of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is now entering the crypto world.

Amsterdam-based speed trader Flow Traders NV co-CEO Dennis Dijkstra told Bloomberg Thursday that his firm was expanding its trading products to exchange-traded notes (ETNs) based on bitcoin and ether.

XBT Provider, a Stockholm-based firm that offers ETFs based on bitcoin and ether, confirmed that Flow Traders NV has "dramatically increased" its securities trading over the last few months.

According to Bloomberg, unlike the major U.S. trading firms currently offering cryptocurrency futures, Flow Traders is the first one to "disclose it's buying and selling crypto notes listed on regulated stock exchanges."

In the interview, Dijkstra said:

"People underestimate crypto. It's big, and it is to be regulated very soon. The market participants are much more professional than people think. Institutional investors are interested -- we know they are because we get requests."

While the Dutch company is moving forward in crypto trading, the country's regulators are wary of the move.

Nienke Torensma, a spokeswoman for the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), said in a statement that "We discourage activities in cryptos both by consumers and professional license holders."

"By virtue of its newness and the anonymity it potentially offers, it is very prone to abuse. Given its inability to serve the promised purpose as a currency, we don't regard it to be an asset class," she continued.

CoinDesk reported in March that the country's finance minister, Wopke Hoekstra, issued a letter to Parliament to urge for "an international approach" to regulate cryptocurrency.

https://www.coindesk.com/the-eus-biggest-etf-firm-expands-into-crypto-products/

I think the net effect of these announcements mean: european investment firms are offering bitcoin and ether ETFs(see: bolded portion of article).

While US markets and the SEC struggled to approve a bitcoin ETF in 2017, europe has gone ahead and done it in 2018. Once again US regulation fails miserably. Europe has approved bitcoin and crypto ETFs. While the united states probably will not approve either in the next 10 years.

This is getting a bit sickening for me being an american and seeing exchanges like bitmex outright ban US residents from trading on leverage. Its almost as if a quiet war is being waged against america and the US economy. Crypto, business and financial opportunities around the world like bitcoin ETFs are being denied to americans. While europeans and foreigners receive much more privilege in terms of support via regulation.

Assuming this is true this is wonderful news (but it can be better if they offer more stable coins). This will be more convenient for people who does not know how to begin investing in Bitcoin. Also since it is offered by an institution it will, people will be more confident in investing on it.
I hope this will be a game changer and more countries will follow.