Australia has been one of the most progressive nations when it comes to the topic of cryptocurrencies. While there are some laws and regulations in place - the crypto and blockchain industry in the country has been developing rather smoothly. In the latest update from the country, cryptocurrency exchange CoinJar has now launched the ‘CoinJar Digital Currency Fund’ - Australia’s first cryptocurrency index fund.
Cryptocurrency index funds are gaining popularity around the world and global giants such as Coinbase have been coming out with their own index funds over the past few months. CoinJar has become the first name in the country to capitalize on this trend. This CoinJar fund defines its objective as: “The primary aim of the Fund is to track the returns of the digital currency market over the medium to long term by investing in selected digital currency assets.”
The fund is currently available for wholesale investors (also known as institutional investors). These are high net-worth investors, who need a certification proving that they have at least $2.5 AUD worth of assets, or have earned over $250,000 for each of the past two financial years. This requirement is more or less the same as that of an ‘accredited investor’ in the US.
The CoinJar Digital Currency Fund offers two different types of investment classes. The first being the Bitcoin Class, where all investments would be weighted on the basis of the price of Bitcoins. The second is a mixed class investment fund where the market cap-weighted price movements of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Ripple (XRP) would be tracked.
Jordan Michaelides, head of institutional at CoinJar commented on the launch of the CoinJar Digital Currency Fund, saying:
“Investing in cryptocurrency carries certain risks and can be an unnecessarily complex process. Traditionally, an individual investor in cryptocurrency has also been exposed to potential loss through cybercrime. We are launching the CoinJar Digital Currency Fund to handle the custody risks, simplify the investment process and provide industry best practice in security for wholesale investors.”
For a first-time investor, the minimum requirement to invest in this fund would be that of $50,000 AUD. Existing investors could then make investments in the increments of $10,000. The CoinJar Digital Currency Fund charges the investors an annual fee of 1.3% for the Bitcoin Class and 1.8% for the Mixed Class. This index fund can be accessed at https://am.coinjar.com/
Australia Bets Big on Cryptos
As noted above, Australia has been quite progressive when it comes to cryptocurrencies. In an interesting move, the government of Queensland, which recently invested $8.3 Million in 70 startups - has also invested in TravelbyBit - which is a startup that aims at promoting travel with the help of cryptocurrencies. The company has developed a Point-of-Sale application which allows travel businesses to make it easier for tourists to make their payments in the form of cryptocurrencies.
Australia’s Brisbane airport was recently hailed as the first airport aiming to become crypto-friendly, allowing users to make multiple types of purchases using cryptocurrencies. Between the government grants to crypto companies, index funds opening up and airlines supporting crypto-payments, it appears that Australia has indeed become a crypto-friendly nation over the recent months.