Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal noted that Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) adoption continues to remain slow due to the historic volatility of the cryptocurrency market and the impracticality of executing day-to-day transactions.
But with Elon Musk having just thrown a US$1.5 billion investment at Bitcoin via Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSL), the 'B' word is once again on many investors' lips.
While Tesla may be hogging all the limelight when it comes to investing in Bitcoin, these 3 ASX shares have been in the game for a while. Let's take a closer look.
3 ASX shares with exposure to Bitcoin
RAIZ Invest Ltd (ASX: RZI)
RAIZ Invest provides financial services and products through its micro-investing platform. Users can select from various investment options using the RAIZ mobile application or through the RAIZ website in Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia.
One of RAIZ's investment options is its Sapphire Portfolio which includes a 5% target allocation to Bitcoin.
First announced in May 2020, CEO George Lucas commented:
Although this latest portfolio offering from RAIZ is very high risk, feedback from many customers has clearly shown that they have an appetite for an investment strategy that has an exposure to cryptocurrencies, and the Sapphire portfolio has been designed with this in mind.
The RAIZ share price has gained more than 150% over the past six months. Today, RAIZ shares jumped 1.75% higher to $1.74. The company has a current market capitalisation of around $127 million.
DigitalX Ltd (ASX: DCC)
DigitalX is a technology and investment company specialising in blockchain application development and digital asset management services.
The company currently offers two cryptocurrency investment products, the DigitalX Bitcoin Fund and the DigitalX Digital Asset Fund.
DigitalX promotes its 7-year track record of managing Bitcoin investments and other digital assets.
According to its latest quarterly report, DigitalX held 215.95 Bitcoins as of 31 December 2020.
The DigitalX share price has delivered gains of around 110% over the past six months and closed today's session at 7.6 cents.
Fatfish Group Ltd (ASX: FFG)
Fatfish is a tech venture firm with investments in Australasia and Europe. The company has Bitcoin exposure via its Sweden-based subsidiary Abelco Investment Group.
Through Abelco, Fatfish is invested in the cryptocurrency and blockchain ventures Minerium and Kryptos-X.
Minerium is a crypto mining technology firm that runs large-scale crypto mining centres around the world. Launched in October 2017, Minerium is focused on improving crypto mining efficiency by operating in international locations, such as Mongolia and Canada, where low-cost energy is readily available.
Kryptos-X is a Singapore-based digital asset trading platform and is a subsidiary of XBourse Global.
In addition to Bitcoin, Fatfish also has an investment in Singapore-based company Smartfunding. Smartfunding is in the process of launching a new online platform in the buy now, pay later (BNPL) space. Unlike other BNPL players such as Zip Co Ltd (ASX: Z1P), Sezzle Inc (ASX: SZL) and Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT), Smartpay's platform will primarily target corporate customers across Singapore and Southeast Asia. The platform will enable customers to pay for purchases of up to S$1 million over 12 to 24-month instalments.
Fatfish recently announced that Smartfunding will officially launch next Thursday 18 February.
Closing today's session at 3.6 cents, the Fatfish share price has gained 260% over the past six months.
Foolish takeaway
Blockchain technology, and the cryptocurrency market it gave life to, isn't new. Digital currency investors like RAIZ, DigitalX, Fatfish, and many others around the world, have been buying Bitcoin long before Elon Musk tweeted about it.
With Bitcoin presently trading at around $46,263, retail investors will need to form their own opinions on whether an investment here makes good long-term sense.
