During the pre-market session on January 11, ahead of its Nasdaq debut, BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) exceeded its NAV by 25.6%.
On the evening of January 10, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the approval of 11 applications for spot exchange-traded funds based on the leading cryptocurrency.
BlackRock was among the approved issuers, alongside Bitwise, Grayscale, Hashdex, Valkyrie, BZX, Invesco, VanEck, WisdomTree, Fidelity, and Franklin Templeton. Trading is expected to commence on January 11 at 17:30 MSK (16:30 Kyiv).
According to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas, the product’s turnover has already exceeded $2 million.
$IBIT has already traded $2m worth of shares traded. That would be a great first FULL day for a normal ETF let alone at 6am bf mkt, BUT.. this volume is likely BlackRock orchestrated, slowly loading in the BYOA $ it had lined up. Still tho good early sign of big day. pic.twitter.com/IV19iHfqYB
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) January 11, 2024
“That would be a great first full day for a normal ETF, let alone at 6am EST. But […] this volume is likely orchestrated by BlackRock, slowly loading in the demand it had gathered. Still a good early sign of a big day,” commented the expert.
Finance.Yahoo has also added the converted Bitcoin trust (GBTC) from Grayscale to its list of tracked instruments. Its pre-market quotes are trading without significant changes.
Balchunas noted that the instrument now has a description in the Bloomberg terminal and an ETF tag.
Just like that $GBTC has completed its transition into an ETF. It’s got the ETF-tag and DES page on Bloomberg. It is bringing a (volume) gun to a knife fight today but on flip it has that advisor-repelling 1.5% fee. Will be fascinating to see how those two things offset or dont pic.twitter.com/PgHoNZlf6B
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) January 11, 2024
“Today [GBTC] is bringing a (volume) gun to a knife fight, but its fee is 1.5%. It will be interesting to see how these two factors offset each other,” noted the analyst.
Before the start of trading in the U.S., Bitcoin is showing moderate growth. Over 24 hours, it has increased by 3.2%, according to CoinGecko.
Earlier, GTS’s co-head of ETF trading and sales, Reggie Brown, predicted the formation of premiums for spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Back on January 11, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization tested the $2600 level, reaching marks last seen in early May 2022. Some market experts are convinced that the SEC will soon give the “green light” to spot Ethereum ETFs.