• The australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) approves a Bitcoin investment fund offered by the startup Raiz.
• The Bitcoin fund will put 95% of its capital into ETFs and the rest will be converted to BTC.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) granted the Raiz startup a permit to operate a Bitcoin investment fund in the country. Raiz plans to launch the fund in the second half of 2020 to compete with Every Capital, which was also allowed to launch a Bitcoin-based investment product.

300,000 Raiz users will be able to benefit from the Bitcoin investment fund (BTC)

Raiz Invest Australia, formerly known as Acorns, manages over $450 million in funds. The ASIC-approved product will operate as a microinvestment fund to be launched on its platform. Raiz has gained popularity for its application, downloaded about 1 million times, which has 300,000 active accounts and 210,000 paid clients.

Raiz users will be able to benefit from the investment fund immediately after its launch. The startup confirmed that 95% of clients’ investments will be placed in Bitcoin ETFs, while the rest will be switched directly to BTC.

The Raiz platform operates by allowing its users to choose the portfolios that will receive their investment. The options can be “traditional” or “aggressive”. In addition, Raiz works by rounding up the change in cryptocurrencies of its users and putting it in the different offers provided by the platform.

Will Australia relax its policies against Bitcoin?

The authorities and regulatory bodies in Australia have an aggressive policy against Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. The approval of Raiz’s product by the ASIC could set a precedent that will benefit the entire cryptoindustry in that country. In the past, Australian authorities have closed cryptoexchanges, frozen funds from banks with ties to the cryptoindustry and declared that projects like Facebook’s Libra will not find support in the country.

A survey conducted by Bitwise revealed that financial advisors interested in cryptocurrencies prefer to invest the funds in ETFs. In addition, there is a general consensus that regulations towards cryptocurrencies must be robust and clear.

Bitwise’s findings are consistent with those of the investment firm ARK. In its projections of Bitcoin’s future for the coming years, ARK shows that the demand for crypto-related investments is gaining ground among major players such as Fidelity and Bakkt. In its report, ARK also shows how Bitcoin’s market capitalization has a high chance of reaching the trillion dollar mark.

The price of Bitcoin trades at $8,626, at the time of publication, with a lateral movement (-0.48%) in the last 24 hours.

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