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Recently, U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs hit a huge milestone. Their cumulative trading volume surpassed $500 billion less than a year after they launched. This is impressive, especially since it happened just ten months after their debut, as reported by James Hunt.
On Wednesday, these ETFs saw a record trading day, hitting $5 billion in volume. So far this week, they’ve brought in a total of $2.4 billion in net inflows. That’s quite a boost!
Since launching in January, the trading volume for U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs has skyrocketed. They reached $100 billion by March and $200 billion by April. This growth coincided with bitcoin hitting an all-time high of nearly $74,000.
After that initial surge, the trading volume slowed a bit. The market cooled down, and bitcoin traded in a range between $50,000 and $70,000 for several months. But things picked up again after Donald Trump’s election victory on November 6. By the end of trading yesterday, the cumulative volume for U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs reached $505.4 billion, according to data from The Block.
This achievement is significant for these new bitcoin funds. They’re now competing with well-known ETF products like the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) and the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ).
The half-a-trillion dollar mark was reached after U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs generated $7.9 billion in trading volume on Wednesday alone. This made it the fourth-largest trading day since they launched and the biggest since March. BlackRock’s IBIT led the charge, with a record $5.2 billion traded that day. Fidelity’s FBTC and Grayscale's GBTC followed, with $1.2 billion and $670 million in trading volume, respectively.
Bloomberg Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas commented, “I thought things were cooling off, but no, IBIT just saw $5 billion in volume today for the first time ever. Only three ETFs and eight stocks saw more action today. Up to $13 billion in three days this week.”
IBIT’s market share has surged recently. It rose from around 15% in January, when Grayscale’s converted GBTC fund was leading, to 67% as of Wednesday.
Meanwhile, U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs, which launched in July, are also seeing a boost. They generated $702 million in trading on Wednesday, bringing their cumulative volume to $22.3 billion.
Amid this rising trading volume, U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs also recorded another day of over half a billion dollars in net inflows. They added $510.1 million on Wednesday alone, totaling $2.4 billion this week. BlackRock’s IBIT led these inflows with $230.8 million, followed by Fidelity’s FBTC with $186.1 million and Grayscale’s BTC with $61.3 million.
After six days of positive flows, bitcoin ETFs have added $4.7 billion since Trump’s election victory. The total net inflows since trading began now stand at $28.3 billion, based on data compiled by The Block.
Nate Geraci, President of The ETF Store, stated, “Another $500+ million into spot bitcoin ETFs today. Six straight days of inflows totaling $4.7 billion. We’re quickly approaching $30 billion in net inflows since the January launch. Simply incredible.”
With the recent price rise, spot bitcoin ETFs now manage around $89 billion in assets, according to The Block’s Bitcoin ETF Tracker Page. BlackRock’s IBIT leads with $41.1 billion in assets under management.
Balchunas noted, “IBIT has hit the $40 billion asset mark (just two weeks after hitting $30 billion) in a record 211 days, smashing the previous record of 1,253 days held by IEMG. It’s now in the top 1% of all ETFs by assets and at 10 months old, it’s bigger than all 2,800 ETFs launched in the past ten years.”
On the Ethereum side, U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs added $146.9 million in net inflows on Wednesday. Fidelity’s FETH led with $101.7 million, followed by BlackRock’s ETHA with $35.6 million. The Ethereum funds have added $578.3 million this week, $796.2 million since the U.S. election result, and $248.7 million in total net inflows since launch.
Geraci remarked, “In my opinion, nothing is more interesting in asset management right now than the intersection of crypto and ETFs. It involves the largest asset managers, politicians, regulators—everyone. Remember, ETFs are simply a bridge for mainstream access to crypto. Once that bridge is fully built, there’s no going back.”
Currently, bitcoin is trading at $90,738, according to The Block’s Bitcoin Price Page. It briefly surged to over $93,000 on Wednesday. The leading cryptocurrency has risen by 3.4% in the past 24 hours, over 20% in the last week, and 115% year-to-date. The GMCI 30 index, which represents a selection of the top 30 cryptocurrencies, has increased nearly 5% over the past day to 163.57, gaining 22% in the last week and around 65% in 2024.