Switzerland’s market regulator, the Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), has approved the first exchange-traded retail fund that directly holds Bitcoin on Tuesday, October 20.
The first-of-its-kind approval in the country lands in the same week as Sparkassen rolled out crypto trading inside its banking app in neighboring Germany.
Switzerland is late to Bitcoin funds despite pioneering ETPs
The FINMA clearance means Switzerland finally gets a public fund that actually holds Bitcoin after being one of the first to list crypto exchange-traded products.
As of April 2026, the SIX Swiss Exchange’s monthly crypto report listed 397 crypto products, including 217 crypto ETPs tied to 23 underlying assets. 21Shares, CoinShares and WisdomTree also list Bitcoin and Ether funds in the country.
Notably, the Crypto Market Index Fund that FINMA approved in 2021 was exclusively open to qualified investors and spreads its money across a basket of tokens.
The new fund that FINMA approved today is open to retail buyers, and it concentrates on a single asset.
That approval came with an exemption to the risk diversification rules that Switzerland enforces on public funds, which require them to spread risk across many holdings.
Per FINMA’s announcement, it granted the exemption because of Bitcoin’s long trading history and higher trading volume compared with other cryptocurrencies.
That logic does not extend to any other cryptocurrencies.
FINMA attached safeguards
The approval FINMA granted to the unnamed Bitcoin product came with other conditions.
FINMA noted that there is a queue of fund providers that have already filed or announced applications for similar products in Switzerland.
US spot Bitcoin ETFs had their largest daily intake day since September 22, drawing $526.7 million on Monday.
BlackRock also filed a preliminary prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for a new iShares Bitcoin Managed Protection ETF (PBIT), its third Bitcoin fund filing.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.