CryptoScope

Bitcoin has rocketed into 2024, adding a eye-watering 70% since the beginning of the year

The bitcoin price has topped $70,000 per bitcoin, pushing the wider crypto market back toward its .

Now, , a leak has revealed China could be poised to permit people to buy into bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in Hong Kong.

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Harvest Fund Management, an asset manager in China, could be approved to launch a spot bitcoin ETF by Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) as soon as this month, it was by Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources.

“The significance of Hong Kong ETFs is far-reaching as it could bring in fresh global investment as well as pushing crypto adoption to a new height,” Adrian Wang, the chief executive of Metalpha, a Hong Kong-based crypto wealth manager, Reuters, which reported the first spot bitcoin ETF approvals in Hong Kong are “likely to be announced next week.”

China has repeatedly cracked down on bitcoin and crypto trading in the country, most recently in 2021. Since then, most people in China have had no way of buying bitcoin, ethereum, XRP or any other cryptocurrency, though demand for assets not tied to China remains strong.

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“Wild stuff in China as local investors pile into a gold stock ETF pushing its premium to 30% and forcing it to halt trading,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas to X. “Investors there are so desperate to buy things that are not linked to their own economy or stock market, which has been in the gutter.”

“For those wondering buying bitcoin ETFs is not allowed there,” Balchunas added. “If it were my guess is they’d be going gaga for them given how much fomo [fear of missing out] they have been showing for gold and U.S. stocks.”

The bitcoin price rally so far this year has been largely put down to the debut of a fleet of Wall Street spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January.

Wall Street giants BlackRock

and Fidelity have emerged as the two largest of the new bitcoin ETF issuers, raking in assets under management of around $15 billion and $9 billion respectively.