‘Fair business’ for Aquis stocks to get into crypto, exchange boss says
The boss of the new owner of Aquis has said it is “fair business” for firms to hold crypto after a wave of the exchange’s constituents adopted Bitcoin treasury policies.
Bjorn Sibbern, CEO of stock exchange Six, which this week completed its £225m takeover of Aquis, told City PM: “If we have listed companies that are exposed to crypto one way or another, as long as they are open and transparent about what they do, I think that’s a fair business.”
He added: “If you look at Six, we have ETFs with crypto underlying, so if there’s investor demand for investing in ETFs with crypto underlying we provide that as part of our service.”
A spokesperson said Sibbern was referring to Exchange-traded products or ETPs, a type of collateralized bearer debt security which is treated differently from a regulatory perspective.
Sibbern declined to comment on whether he would impose restrictions or limits on how much crypto individual Aquis constituents should hold.
More than a dozen UK small cap listed firms have adopted or have considered adopting Bitcoin treasury policies since the start of last month, leading to whipsawing share prices as retail investors flocked to the stocks. In many cases the shares have appreciated to a much larger degree than the value of a firm’s Bitcoin purchases.
One of the firms, a web design business called Smarter Web Company, saw its stock rocket to become the most valuable Aquis constituent on the back of its Bitcoin purchases, with the firm’s market cap briefly exceeding £1bn.
Sibbern said he thought London-based Aquis was a “fantastic venue” that is “built to tailor” the flotations of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
“We can also see that the business model around the London Stock Exchange, their name, is struggling, so I think actually it is a great alternative for SMEs.”
Sibbern, who became CEO of Six in January, added that he was exploring whether Aquis could be expanded into a pan-European listing venue for small businesses.
In addition to its ownership of Aquis, Six also operates the Swiss stock exchange, the BME exchange in Spain and the Six Digital Exchange for blockchain-based businesses.