It’s been a busy week here at ByteTree as we welcomed the 21Shares Bitcoin and Gold ETP (BOLD) to the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday, 13 January.
BOLD was first listed on 27th April 2022 in Zurich, and I rang the cowbell to mark the opening of the Swiss SIX Stock Exchange. This time in London, I pressed a button with colleagues from 21Shares, which marked the UK market closed. It was good fun, and I wore the same jacket for luck.
To mark BOLD week, I have recorded three interviews, where I pitched BOLD to experts on Bitcoin, Gold, and the BOLD ETP itself.
Starting with Bitcoin, I spoke with Izabella Kaminska. She is the founder and editor of The Blind Spot, but in a previous role, she was the founding editor of the Financial Times’ Alphaville service, where she spent many years as a vocal Bitcoin critic. In around 2020, she turned and became a Bitcoin enthusiast, and that intrigued me. It was a comprehensive discussion covering the relevance, liquidity, and endurance of digital assets, which are not going away.
To cover Gold, there was only one choice: John Reade, the Senior Market Strategist at the World Gold Council. He has spent 40 years in the gold industry as a mining engineer, an investment banker, an analyst, and an investor. He knows everything there is to know about gold and has the central banks on speed dial. He likes BOLD because Bitcoin and Gold are “not in competition” and sees them as complementary assets.
Finally, for the product, I asked Adrian Fritz, the Chief Investment Strategist at 21Shares. He has enjoyed the BOLD journey as much as I have and explains how the ETP works. He describes what happens when someone puts on a trade, where the Bitcoin and Gold are safely stored, and how the portfolio rebalances. If you watch until the end, you’ll hear my favourite story about how he sold Bitcoin in 2011 to fund an evening out in town. At the time, the Bitcoin price was sub-$10, making it a million-dollar evening in today’s money. He puts it down to experience.
In all the videos, I start with a short pitch on the BOLD strategy. When you’ve seen once, that’s probably enough, so if you do manage to watch two or more, I suggest you skip ahead rather than watch me on repeat.
Many of you are asking how to access BOLD. It will hopefully be on all the investment platforms in due course, but that process takes time. So far, BOLD is trading on Interactive Brokers, Saxo, and Interactive Investor. If your platform has not added BOLD, then please contact them directly. BOLD’s inclusion cannot be influenced by either 21Shares or me, as it is based on client demand. The more the merrier.
Thank you to ByteTree clients for helping to make BOLD week so special.
