Jupiter Asset Management’s compliance team blocked its investors from having any exposure to a cryptocurrency exchange-traded product (ETP) in one of its Irish UCITs funds, according to a Financial Times report.

The reason for blocking the investment was due to, “divergent regulatory approaches in the EU.”

UCITS are open-ended investment funds and are a popular form of investment vehicle, especially for European retail investors. Currently, Ireland does not allow crypto investments in UCITS funds.

According to the report, the disclosure of the incident comes as European fund managers have been looking to hold exposure crypto assets in their funds. Unfortunately due to the “divergent regulations” in Europe have been unable to do so.

“The Commissioner in Ireland has been very clear about crypto investment vehicles such as ETFs and ETPs, they do not recognise Bitcoin or crypto as qualified [asset class] hence why today this still stands. We filed our first ETP filing with them back in 2015 under section 110 and this was rejected,”  Laurent Kssis, a crypto expert on trading and ETFs at CEC Capital told Cryptonews.

Jupiter is a UK-based fund management group, that manages equity and bond investments for private and institutional investors. The group has assets under management of $66.5 billion.

During press time a Jupiter Asset Management spokesperson was unavailable to comment further on the Financial Times report.

There was no regulatory intervention or impact on the fund, a Jupiter spokesperson told the publication. “The trade was made, picked up by our regular oversight process and then cancelled,” the spokesperson added.

UK Investors Have Dabbled in Crypto 

Back in 2021, the U.K.-based Ruffer Investment Management revealed it had made a $1.1 billion profit in five months from investing in Bitcoin.

Its Guernsey-based closed-ended fund, Ruffer Investment Company, had some exposure to bitcoin in 2020. Back then a Ruffer investment director said the firm sold its bitcoin because younger people would not be spending so much time trading now that the lockdowns are ending.

There are a vast array of products available in the European market. The main European crypto ETP providers include 21Shares, CoinShares, WisdomTree, VanEck, Valour, Invesco, Hashdex, ETC Group.

In January 2021, the FCA implemented a ban on the sale of derivatives and ETPs. The FCA said it considers the products to be ill-suited for retail consumers due to the potential harm they pose. Institutional investors (not retail) can access crypto products through Goldman Sachs, ICAP, JPMorgan, and UBS.

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