The London Stock Exchange (LON:LSEG) announced on Tuesday that it will start trading cryptocurrency products for Bitcoin and Ethereum from three LSE-listed companies, which will be available only to professional investors. This is the first time that products related to the cryptocurrency market have been traded on the London Stock Exchange.
According to the statement issued by the London Stock Exchange, trading will begin on exchange-traded notes (ETNs) for Bitcoin and Ethereum only, which are also trading products similar to exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with some differences between them.
Exchange-traded notes (ETNs) are a type of unsecured debt security that tracks a major stock index and trades on a major exchange, like stocks. These are the UK's first cryptocurrency ETNs.
Although ETNs are similar to ETFs in most respects, they are based on unsecured debt securities issued by a bank, which means they do not directly hold the assets they track as ETFs do.
This comes after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced last Thursday its approval to grant ETFs for spot contracts for the digital currency Ethereum to eight giant investment companies in digital currency trading. The commission had taken a similar step for Bitcoin last February.
