ETC Group has added three new ETPs to its suite of institutional-grade digital asset investment solutions.
Bradley Duke, Founder and co-CEO of ETC Group.
Listed on SIX Swiss Exchange in US dollars, euros, and pound sterling, the ETPs provide directly backed exposure to AVAX, ATOM, and MATIC, the native tokens underpinning the Avalanche, Cosmos, and Polygon networks respectively.
They are the AVAXetc – ETC Group Physical Avalanche ETP (AVAL SW), ATOMetc – ETC Group Physical Cosmos ETP (ATME), and MATICetc – ETC Group Physical Polygon ETP (MTCE).
All three ETPs are also due to be rolled out on Deutsche Börse Xetra in euros at the beginning of April.
Similar to ETC Group’s existing digital asset and thematic ETPs, the new listings have come to market in partnership with London-based white-label ETF platform HANetf which is overseeing marketing and distribution responsibilities.
The three new ETPs are designed to offer institutional investors easy access to AVAX, ATOM, and MATIC through liquid, regulated vehicles without the technical challenges of setting up private keys or crypto wallets.
They use full direct, so-called ‘physical’ replication with each ETP share being 100% collateralized by a corresponding investment in AVAX, ATOM, or MATIC tokens which are stored using institutional-grade custody solutions provided by Coinbase or BitGo Trust.
Each ETP comes with an expense ratio of 1.95%.
ETC Group now offers nine directly backed crypto ETPs with the other products in the suite providing exposure to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, Polkadot, and Litecoin.
Bradley Duke, Founder and co-CEO of ETC Group, said: “Investors are increasingly interested in adding some of the newer, innovative cryptocurrencies to their portfolios, especially those amassing large market caps. These new ETPs offer investors high quality, physically backed digital assets, underpinned by our partnerships with world-class liquidity providers to deliver high liquidity and tight trading spreads.”
Hector McNeil co-Founder and co-CEO at HANetf, added: “We are delighted to partner with ETC Group again to offer new products to their existing suite of crypto ETPs. ETC Group has established itself as a market leader in offering investment products focused on crypto assets. Interest in crypto ETPs has been booming as they provide investors with a safe and liquid way to gain exposure to digital assets.”
Avalanche
Avalanche is an open-source platform for DeFi applications and enterprise blockchain deployments, making it a direct rival to Ethereum, the most popular blockchain for the deployment of smart contracts.
The Avalanche network comprises multiple blockchains and employs a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism that achieves a high throughput of up to 6,500 transactions per second without compromising scalability.
Each chain in the Avalanche architecture represents its own virtual machine and allows for case-specific functionality.
The network’s name reflects its consensus protocol which consists of four mechanisms (Slush, Snowflake, Snowball, and Avalanche) that build upon each other, becoming more secure in the process.
With a total market capitalization of $25.0bn, AVAX is currently ranked as the tenth-largest cryptocurrency globally.
Cosmos
Cosmos is pioneering an ecosystem of parallel blockchains, including the two largest ecosystems of Ethereum and Terra, to help propel a decentralized, interoperable future using the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol.
Cosmos was founded in 2016 by blockchain engineers Jae Kwon, Zarko Milosevic, and Ethan Buchman who, two years earlier, had co-founded Tendermint, a blockchain engine that served as the gateway for the Cosmos ecosystem.
The Cosmos ecosystem includes decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure and marketplaces, financial tools such as wallets and smart contracts, as well as gaming applications, and more. The most important innovation in the Cosmos ecosystem is its ability to enable the use of the IBC protocol to allow blockchains to exchange value without surrendering their underlying assets.
The Cosmos hub serves as the economic centre of the ecosystem by providing a next-generation decentralized digital asset exchange, a router between DeFi chains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin, an interchain security feature, and a custodian feature for digital assets.
With a total market capitalization of $8.8bn, ATOM is currently the 21st-largest cryptocurrency globally.
Polygon
Polygon is a scaling solution offering multiple tools to simplify, speed up, and reduce the costs of transactions on the Ethereum blockchain.
Ethereum is a well-established, open-ended decentralized platform and the leading venue for the deployment of smart contracts.
Due to Ethereum’s wide range of applications, activity on its blockchain has surged, leading to congestion and high ‘gas fees’, the fee that miners demand to process transactions. Ethereum users are forced to either accept high gas fees to ensure their transaction is processed quickly or, alternatively, face delays and even the possibility that their transaction will be dropped if their gas price bid is too low.
Polygon seeks to address this shortcoming, helping Ethereum to expand in size, security, efficiency, and usefulness. It is essentially an add-on layer utilizing sidechains that run alongside Ethereum without changing the original blockchain.
Polygon’s name reflects its many sides, shapes, and uses, offering a simpler, versatile framework that can be customized to best suit different types of participants wishing to enact transactions on the Ethereum blockchain.
With a current market capitalization of $13.1bn, MATIC is the 16th-largest cryptocurrency globally.