A big blow in Hong Kong. After several months of waiting, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has now given the green light to several Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs. This was reported by Bloomberg.

Accordingly, the regulator of China's Special Administrative Region granted the asset managers China Asset Management, Bosera Capital, Harvest Global Investments and HashKey Capital Limited a license for the financial products. It is still unclear when the index funds will be made available for trading. As in the U.S., these are also spot products. This means that the asset managers must buy and hold the underlying assets (in this case Bitcoin and Ethereum).

Hong Kong financial regulators indicated their openness to a Bitcoin ETF back in December last year. At the time, it was not clear whether a similar product would be launched in the US. So the Special Administrative Region is fundamentally different from mainland China, where restrictive regulations against Bitcoin and the like are still in place.

When it comes to Ethereum spot ETFs, Hong Kong is even ahead of the US. In New York, major asset managers such as BlackRock and Fidelity are also trying to launch an index fund on Ethereum. However, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is standing in the way. Asset manager VanEck, which is also fighting for an ETH ETF, now assumes the application will be rejected. In an interview with BTC-ECHO, CEO and namesake Jan Van Eck explains the reasons: "Ethereum ETF will be rejected."

Meanwhile, news surrounding the approval of ETFs is fueling the crypto market. After a sharp sell-off in the wake of macroeconomic charges and the Iranian drone attack on Israel, Bitcoin and the altcoins are currently rising again.