Wall Street may be divided over crypto’s investment credentials but for Bitcoin brethren Thursday delivered validation: The first US exchange-traded funds investing directly in the largest digital currency finally went live.
It was a much-anticipated debut that came a day after the US Securities and Exchange Commission gave them the green light following a more than decade-long campaign by the digital-asset industry.
The batch of almost a dozen funds — including offerings from investment powerhouses BlackRock Inc. and Fidelity Investments — got off to a strong start, with some $4.6 billion of shares changing hands in a frenetic first day. Industry backers see the ETFs as the ultimate springboard for broader mainstream adoption by everyday investors and the catalyst for further gains.
“Easily the biggest splash in ETF history for a first day,” said Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “No matter where you look, it’s superseded expectations.”
Bitcoin at one point on Thursday surged past $49,000 to levels last seen in 2021 before falling back to $46,075 as of 9:30 p.m. in New York. Other major tokens were mixed as speculators took stock of the outlook.
Here are some of the highlights, and look at what’s next:
Trading Records
Thursday’s debuts included some record-breaking activity: With $2.3 billion exchanging hands, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust saw the largest-ever first-day turnover for an ETF. To be sure, Grayscale’s product has existed in a trust structure since 2013, and had a nearly $27 billion head-start in asset size.
But even ETFs that did not convert from an existing fund have seen historic trading volumes. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust — IBIT — saw $1 billion change hands, the fifth-largest ETF launch on record.
Trading volume doesn’t indicate a full picture of the nature of buying or selling or investor inflows. Because of the way the funds settle trades, net flows into or out of the products probably won’t be known until at least Friday.
Access
Ultimately, the ETFs won’t be successful in the long term unless investors are able to easily access them, and that remains an issue.
Vanguard Group Inc.’s brokerage arm will not offer trading in the ETFs, while Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Edge is still evaluating whether to provide that service. Other platforms, however, are more eager to jump on the bandwagon. Robinhood Markets Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vlad Tenev said in an X post Wednesday that the brokerage is planning to list the funds “as soon as possible.” Charles Schwab made the ETFs available on its platform.