News came this week of the expansion of Brazil-headquartered Hashdex to offer its flagship product, the Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index Europe ETP on the Euronext Paris and Euronext Amsterdam under the ticker symbols HASH FP and HASH NA, respectively, and on Xetra under the ticker symbol HDX1 GY.
Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index Europe ETP now tradable in Frankfurt, Paris, and Amsterdam
Bruno Sousa, Head of New Markets and a founder of the crypto fund manager explains that the team behind the firm started their business in 2018, in Brazil and the US, initially with private funds but with the aim of creating ETFs, not only in the US but in different jurisdictions where they thought it could work with the regulators.
Sousa says that the firm launched the first crypto ETF with a launch in Bermuda in 2020, followed by a launch in Brazil in 2021. In the US, where the SEC has restricted crypto ETPs to the futures-based model, Sousa confirms that Hashdex has filed to produce a futures-based crypto product.
“In Europe we have been looking since 2018 to see how our approach would be to the continent and how we would position ourselves,” he says. “Our philosophy is to bring to Europe our speciality of beta and the Nasdaq index – this is our European incarnation,” Sousa says. “Baskets are probably the best approach for investors in the current stage of crypto markets today.”
Hashdex launched into a crypto winter back in 2018 and now faces a similar challenge. Sousa says: “We have been here before as we started the firm in a crypto winter and watched the first fund price dropping. Crypto is a new market but we are almost five now which gives us some time on the road. A crypto winter is when you build great stuff and properly managed products survive and thrive.”
Sousa says that Hashdex’s investors understand that crypto investment is for the long term. “We have had no redemptions in our private funds and the ETFs actually grew,” he says. Hashdex’s crypto ETPs that track crypto multi-asset indices attracted USD117.9 million from global investors in the first half of 2022.
“It’s more than all issuers in crypto baskets globally combined,” Sousa says. “It shows the good work we have done and the sentiment from investors shows that people think it’s now a good time to buy as the potential is there and as adoption and technology evolves the trend is for prices to appreciate.
“On top of that our products are essentially replicating indices. The ETPs are 100 per cent collateralised and have no leverage.”
Assets under management at Hashdex are currently around USD500 million.
