Hargreaves Lansdowne, the UK's most popular investment platform, announced that it will allow customers to invest in Bitcoin

Hargreaves Lansdown, one of the most prominent investment platforms in the UK, will soon allow its customers to invest in Bitcoin.

The platform, which manages £70 billion of investment funds for 876,000 clients, has announced it will allow customers to invest in Bitcoin.

Ryan Radloff, Head of Investor Relations at XBT, said:

“By adding self-service, online trading, the Hargreaves Lansdowne team is providing UK investors with a professional and responsive Bitcoin service both in the UK and across wider Europe.

The announcement comes shortly after U.S. financial services group Fidelity Investments announced it would allow customers to view the amount of cryptocurrency they hold on the Coinbase platform.

However, Hargreaves Lansdown is using a fund provided by Switzerland-based XBT Provider, which forms an exchange-traded note (ETN). These funds are listed on stock exchanges, meaning bitcoin can be bought and sold like a share.

XBT Provider explained:

“The value of the Certificates and any amounts payable will be strongly influenced by the performance of the Bitcoin to USD/Krona exchange rate. An investment in such Certificates may therefore be highly volatile and therefore subject to risk.”

In other words, UK Bitcoin investors will be exposed to risk on two fronts, not only from the notoriously volatile nature of the cryptocurrency itself, but also from changes in the USD/Krona exchange rate.

Clients request to invest in Bitcoin

Danny Cox, head of communications at Hargreaves Lansdown, noted that the decision to add Bitcoin as an investment option was partly driven by client requests.

Cox said:

“We have seen some clients requesting ETN, so our decision was not purely based on supplier requests.”

The client interest, albeit minority, suggests that this demand for bitcoin could be significant for traditional investors.

Despite the potential risks, Bitcoin once again outperformed all assets and fiat currencies in 2017, and savvy investors began to pay attention to Bitcoin. This is an important step for Bitcoin to move towards mainstream adoption and become a legitimate asset in traditional finance.