- Trading volume of spot ETFs based on digital gold, excluding GBTC, reached a peak of $2.4 billion.
- BlackRock’s IBIT surged to $1.29 billion, making it attractive to institutional investors.
- Experts linked activity spikes in other products to high-frequency traders.
On February 26, trading turnover of GBTC’s competitors reached a peak of $2.4 billion since the SEC approved bitcoin ETFs. This figure nearly doubled the observed daily average.
It’s official..the New Nine Bitcoin ETFs have broken all time volume record today with $2.4b, just barely beating Day One but about double their recent daily average. $IBIT went wild accounting for $1.3b of it, breaking its record by about 30%. pic.twitter.com/MiCs1rzttM
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) February 26, 2024
The previous record high was set on the first day of trading on January 11.
Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas highlighted the performance of BlackRock’s IBIT, which set a new record by ~30% ($1.29 billion). Fidelity’s FBTC ($576 million) and ARK 21 Shares’ ARKB ($276 million) took second and third place.
The expert noted that IBIT’s “insane” figure is comparable to the trading volume of the top 25 stocks.
MILESTONE $IBIT has traded $1b worth of shares today so far.. which ranks it 11th among all ETFs (Top 0.3%) and Top 25 among stocks. Insane number for newbie ETF (esp one w ten competitors). $1b/day is big boy level volume, enough for (even big) institutional consideration. pic.twitter.com/1vxW5jhaXT
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) February 26, 2024
“$1 billion a day is big boy level volume, enough for (even big) institutional consideration,” explained Balchunas.
On February 23, Bloomberg reported that the RIA platform Carson Group, with $30 billion AUM, approved investments in bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock, Fidelity, Bitwise, and Franklin Templeton. Similar moves from other institutions are expected in the future.
Bloomberg’s analyst explained that “things are going great” not only for the “Godzilla-giant” [IBIT] but also for the rest of the “new nine.”
BlackRock is Godzilla-big with massive distribution, a trusted brand and they are well known in trading world (dozens of their ETFs do over $200m/day) so not surprising they breaking away in volume. That said, rest of New Nine are doing fine to outstanding, everyone gonna eat. https://t.co/OC8HkyGxGr
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) February 26, 2024
In a comment for The Block, CoinShares analysts linked the recent spike in trading activity in VanEck’s HODL, where the daily figure suddenly jumped 1400% to $400 million, to high-frequency trading activity.
“We assume that some quantitative funds are conducting high-frequency intraday trades. Typically, they use futures but may switch to some ETFs,” they reported.
The publication noted that an abnormal jump—from $33.1 million to $233 million—also occurred in WisdomTree’s BTCW.
Latest Market Summary
According to SoSoValue, on February 26, the total net inflow into exchange-traded funds based on the first cryptocurrency exceeded $6 billion. From January 26 to February 20, there was a net inflow for 17 consecutive days.
BitMEX Research noted a slowdown in outflows from GBTC to a minimum of $44 million since January 11.
Bitcoin ETF Flow — 24 Feb 2024
All data now in, except perhaps for the Galaxy/Invesco product
Friday was a strong day, with +$232.3m of net inflow. Also, the outflow for GBTC was just $44m, lowest level since 11th Jan pic.twitter.com/1Q0OtjEJLt
— BitMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) February 24, 2024
Farside visually presented the cumulative historical dynamics of spot bitcoin ETFs.
Active demand for exchange-traded funds has been one of the drivers of digital gold’s rise to $56,000.
Earlier, Kaiko analysts concluded that the launch of spot ETFs positively impacted bitcoin’s order book liquidity and its ability to trade at stable prices.
CoinShares reported that inflows into cryptocurrency investment products from February 17 to 23 amounted to $598 million following a record $2.45 billion in the previous reporting period.