Bitcoin ETFs trading volume exceeds $4,5 billion at the end of the first day
Half of that amount came from Grayscale’s exchange-traded fund
12.01.2024 - 08:10
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What’s new? The total trading volume of ten bitcoin-based spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) exceeded $4,5 billion on the first day of launch in the United States. For example, the Grayscale ETF (ticker GBTC) reached $2,2 billion. The trading volume of BlackRock (IBIT) and Fidelity (FBTC) funds, amounted to about $1 billion and $685 million, respectively. The trading volume includes inflows and outflows of funds and does not reflect the number of purchases and sales.
What else is known? Bloomberg senior analyst Eric Balchunas suggested that the vast majority of GBTC trades were sales as investors moved into new products with lower rates. His colleague James Seyffart shares the same view.
Grayscale, for example, has set its fund management fee at 1,5%, well above competitors’ fees. At the same time, ARK Invest and 21Shares (ARKB) and Invesco and Galaxy (BTCO) products offer zero fees initially.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved 11 applications for spot BTC ETFs, but so far only 10 products are trading on the Nasdaq, NYSE, and CBOE exchanges. Hashdex has not yet launched its DEFI fund due to paperwork delays.
The launch of spot bitcoin ETFs was also followed by a surge of interest in the ProShares Futures Bitcoin ETF (BITO), launched in 2021. BITO shares traded over $2 billion in a day, a record high.
This is also believed to be mostly due to selling as investors shift from bitcoin’s futures offering to the cheaper and less volatile spot offering.
Cane Macro investment manager Timothy Peterson estimates that buyer interest in spot ETFs requires buying against instruments of around 47 000 BTC (~$2,1 billion).
Bitcoin corrected to $45 955 overnight after a short-term spike to $48 887.
Earlier, Bitwise and VanEck announced that they would begin to direct part of the profits from the management of spot BTC ETFs to the development of open-source projects on the Bitcoin network.
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