Small firm makes big splash with first Bitcoin Fund launch in Europe

By Tedra DeSue - November 25, 2017 (cryptovest.com)

Its $10 billion in assets may be small in comparison to its larger counterparts, but Tobam’s new Bitcoin mutual fund is making big waves as it’s the first to launch such a crypto fund in Europe.

It may be considered to be small in the investment world, but Paris-based Tobam has made a huge step in terms of putting Bitcoin on the map in Europe.

It has launched the TOBAM Bitcoin Fund, which is Europe’s first Bitcoin mutual fund. The goal is to attract institutional investors, similar to the CME Group’s Bitcoin future’s launch. 

Tobam’s fund

Tobam’s website directs those wishing to know more about the deal to an article in the Financial Times. In that piece, many details were given about the fund.

One of the features about the fund is that it is classified as an alternative investment fund. Also, it is not traded on an exchange, nor does it fall under the European mutual fund structure known as Ucits.  

According to the Financial Times:

“… [the fund] has daily liquidity based on market closing prices, as is the case in most Ucits mutual funds. Tobam said it required the approval of France’s financial regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers, to launch the fund.”

Answering its clients wants

The founder of the fund, Yves Choueifaty, was noted as saying he had to convince the AMF that the bitcoin fund’s “framework is protective of investors.”

He was quoted as saying:

“How to run the money and invest in cryptocurrencies is quite elaborate. We found some investors to launch the fund and we have had a lot of interest from an intellectual point of view.”

Choueifaty expressed optimism about the fund’s prospects. He told the Financial Times he’d be disappointed if the Bitcoin fund had not grown to a size of more than $400 million in the next two to three years.

Of note is that Tobam’s unregulated fund has beat CME to the punch. CME plans to launch a futures contract for Bitcoin this year, and it had to issue a clarification last week that a notice on its website stating the contract would begin trading on Dec. 11 was posted in error.