In the US it is called an ETF, in Europe often an ETP. The difference comes down to regulation – and explains how crypto ends up on exchanges.
ETP stands for exchange-traded product and is the collective term for anything that trades on an exchange like a stock without being a stock. ETFs are one type of ETP.
Under the same umbrella you find the ETN, exchange-traded note, which is a debt instrument. There is also the ETC, exchange-traded commodity, used for commodities such as gold.
In Europe, an ETF must comply with UCITS, the EU's common rulebook for funds sold to retail investors. A fund approved in one country can therefore be sold across the entire EEA.
UCITS requires diversification. A fund cannot invest more than a limited share in any single issuer, and its assets are held separately from the manager. That is why a European ETF cannot own just one cryptocurrency.
Products that track bitcoin or another single cryptocurrency are structured in Europe as ETNs or ETCs. Formally they are debt securities issued by a company, but they are backed by actual cryptocurrency held by a custodian.
Nasdaq Stockholm requires such products to be physically backed. The issuer must actually own the cryptocurrency the product tracks.
The difference from a UCITS fund is that some risk tied to the issuer remains. It therefore pays to look at who is behind the product, how the cryptocurrency is held and how much experience the issuer has.
The US bitcoin ETFs are registered as trusts under a different framework than regular funds, which is why they can hold a single asset. In practice, a US crypto ETF and a European crypto ETP are very similar, even though the names differ.
Europe had crypto on exchanges long before the US. As early as 2015, a bitcoin product from Swedish XBT Provider was listed in Stockholm. XBT Provider is now part of CoinShares.
Retail investors in the EEA generally cannot buy US ETFs. The rules require a standardized fact sheet in the local language, known as a KID, and US issuers do not produce one. European investors instead use European funds and products that track the same indices or assets.