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Bitcoin rose sharply and trading volumes surged after the first US exchange traded funds with direct exposure to the world’s largest cryptocurrency debuted on stock exchanges.
Nine new ETFs and two conversions from other products started trading on Thursday morning across the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and Cboe exchanges with hopes of scoring an influx of investor cash, a day after they received long-awaited approvals from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
As of 10am Eastern time, bitcoin’s price had climbed more than 8 per cent over 24 hours to more than $48,000, and trading volumes in the cryptocurrency were up about 40 per cent in that time, according to CoinGecko.
An earlier ETF based on bitcoin futures, rather than the spot cryptocurrency, garnered $1bn in investor money in the first two days of its launch in late 2021 by ProShares. This history has raised expectations for rapid growth for some of the newly approved spot bitcoin funds.
“I think there’s actually going to be some pretty strong inflows out of the gate,” said David Mann, head of ETF product and capital markets for Franklin Templeton, which is among the 11 firms launching a spot bitcoin ETF.
“Whether there’s an initial pop and then a slow climb thereafter, I guess we’ll see. But given the excitement and given what we think is a sizeable amount of investors who want this particular exposure with an ETF form, we are certainly proceeding as if it’s going to be gathering assets quickly,” Mann said.
The issuers constitute a broad spectrum of the ETF industry, with large and diversified asset managers including BlackRock and Invesco offering products alongside smaller firms with a stronger focus on digital assets, such as Valkyrie and Bitwise.
In a final round of pre-launch filings, most issuers slashed prices in a bid to compete for flows, with several waiving charges to investors for the initial months after the products are launched.
Bitwise chief investment officer Matthew Hougan said he had heard some “ridiculous numbers” in the range of $10bn to $20bn mentioned as possible flow targets for bitcoin ETFs in their first year, but cautioned against such hopes.
“For what it’s worth, that would be extraordinary,” he said. “That’s not what the ETF industry has seen.”
