First-Ever Middle Eastern Bitcoin Fund Launches in Dubai

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The Bitcoin Fund has been listed on the Nasdaq Dubai by 3iQ Corp, Canada’s largest digital asset investment fund manager. The fund is the first of its kind in the Middle East, opening up the affluent region to more BTC investment.

A New Bitcoin Market

While Bitcoin investors are found worldwide, the opening of The Bitcoin Fund paves the way for new inflows of money from one of the richest areas in the world.

Investors can gain exposure to Bitcoin’s price action by buying units of the fund, and can now transfer units from the Toronto Stock Exchange to Nasdaq Dubai and back as well as acquiring directly on the Nasdaq Dubai. Fund stock traded at $38.40 after launching, 11% higher than the initial reference price of $34.57.

3iQ CEO Frederick Pye stated that he was confident in the decision to open the fund, despite it coming at a time when Bitcoin has lost 50% of its value in a matter of weeks.

“I believe that, whether it happens this year, Bitcoin is going to get to a new all-time-high. Yesterday’s Bitcoin closed at $32,000-a-unit and this morning it opened up at $34,000, so we got about a five percent boom in the price of Bitcoin since yesterday. Hopefully we’re going to get a good move on the first day of the Dubai Nasdaq.”

Pye added that another correction could be incoming, also citing the possibility that the markets will consolidate over the summer before bringing Bitcoin to another all-time high, describing this situation as a “win, win, win situation” for Dubai investors.

Bitcoin has tumbled since May after Tesla CEO Elon Musk revoked Bitcoin as a payment method, citing environmental concerns.

Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021

Sentiment was further impacted when China, the world’s BTC mining hub, implemented a Bitcoin mining ban and took action to restrict trading earlier this week.

Disclaimer: At the time of writing, the author held BTC and altcoins

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