Crypto investment company 21.co announced on Wednesday that its subsidiary, 21Shares AG, has listed a bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP) on Nasdaq Dubai. This is the first bitcoin ETP backed by physical assets in the Middle East.
In a statement, 21.co said that the 21Shares Bitcoin ETP trades under the symbol ABTC in the same way as the 21Shares Bitcoin ETP in Europe.
Dubai wants to become a global centre for cryptocurrencies and has attracted big players like Binance to set up shop there. This year, Binance hired a lot of people in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is helping to shape the Middle East’s regulations for virtual assets.
After being listed in Dubai, 21Shares now has 46 products listed in seven different countries, 21.co said.
Last month, 21.co, a company based in Switzerland, raised $25 million in a funding round that put its value at $2 billion. The company called itself “Switzerland’s largest crypto unicorn” because of this.
The crypto market has been hit by a crash, which has forced some of its biggest players to fire thousands of workers to save money.
But Sherif El-Haddad, who was named head of Middle East for 21Shares in August, was optimistic. He said that cryptocurrencies were “fast becoming the asset of the future for investors and wealth managers around the world.”
Blockchain researcher Chainalysis said in a report last week that the Middle East and North Africa is the fastest-growing cryptocurrency region in the world. In that area, the amount of cryptocurrency received rose by 48% from June 2017 to June 2018.
In the statement, 21Shares CEO and co-founder Hany Rashwan said that the company “will continue to support the Middle East’s ambitions to become a global crypto hub.”
