21Shares global research head Eliezer Ndinga says institutions required ~8 years of building custody, regulatory frameworks and investment vehicles before broadly adopting crypto; the primary barrier was vehicle structure rather than technology (crypto, custody, regulation, institutional readiness). Milestones cited: 21Shares launched one of the first physically backed Bitcoin ETPs in Europe in 2019; US spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved and rolled out in early 2024 after a decade of filings and regulatory work (ETP, ETF, adoption). Security and market failures (Mt. Gox, FTX, Celsius, Terra/Luna) accelerated demand for trusted products, boosting institutional appetite for regulated ETFs/ETPs and improving market legitimacy (security, market impact, product trust).

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In the US the journey of crypto ETFs has been rooted for over a decade. Early filings from companies like Gemini weren’t accepted.
21Shares itself played a significant role in the evolution outside the United States, rolling out one of the world’s first physically backed Bitcoin exchange-traded products (ETPs).

Crypto was initiated as a grassroots revolution mainly influenced by individual developers, early adopters, and retail traders. However, in the last 10 years, the industry has gradually evolved into an asset class that is difficult to avoid.

Although institutions did not quickly adopt crypto, their adoption followed years of work to make the custody, regulation, and investment structures they were willing to trust.

The head of global research at 21Shares, Eliezer Ndinga, gave an interview to TheStreet in which he mentioned that the past few years have been spent preparing the infrastructure and regulatory framework required to make institutions comfortable investing in digital assets.

He mentioned that for the last eight years, the world has spent a lot of time making institutional readiness for these institutions to come in and feel comfortable investing in this asset class.

The largest barrier wasn’t technology, but the investment vehicles used to access it. Eli mentioned institutions mostly prioritise the structure around an asset just as much as the asset itself.

He further mentioned that the underlying is as significant as the vehicle that you invest in, and we have witnessed hacks, bankruptcies and fraud since 2011, initiating from Mt Gox to FTX, Celsius and Terra Luna.

A Long-run Journey

For a lot of traditional investors, familiar products such as exchange-traded funds have aided in bridging that gap. Those vehicles permit investors to have exposure to crypto in a similar way they might purchase shares of firms like Nvidia or Apple.

In the US the journey of crypto ETFs has been rooted for over a decade. Early filings from companies like Gemini weren’t accepted, and it took a lot of years of regulatory discussions before a group of issuers finally rolled out spot Bitcoin ETFs in early 2024.

21Shares itself played a significant role in the evolution outside the United States, rolling out one of the world’s first physically supported Bitcoin exchange-traded products (ETP) in Europe in 2019.

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