Bitcoin’s (BTC) price jumped 5% from the previous day to trade close to the $46,000 level. The last time the apex cryptocurrency traded above $45,000 was on January 12, the day after the first batch of Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) began trading in the United States.
The latest surge can be attributed to the performance of spot Bitcoin ETFs on US stock markets.
IBIT and FBTC Bitcoin ETFs Tallied the Most Assets in Debut Month of any ETFs in 30 Years
As per data from Bloomberg Intelligence, BlackRock’s IBIT, and Fidelity’s FBTC funds have each secured more than $3 billion in Bitcoin in the first 17 days of trading. This figure is significant because both funds have tallied more assets in their first month of trading than any other ETF launched in the United States over the last 30 years.
What makes it even more exciting is the fact that iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) are the only ones to achieve the feat out of a list of over 5,500 ETFs that were launched in the last three decades.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Blachunas noted in a February 8 X post that IBIT and FBTC are in a “league of their own”
Before launching its spot Bitcoin ETF, BlackRock’s own iShares Climate Conscious & Transition MSCI USA ETF – an index designed to track the performance and actions of large and mid-cap US companies relative to a climate transition – was leading in terms of assets under management (AUM) in its debut month at $2.2 billion. The fund was launched on June 8, 2023.
Blachunas said the result of BlackRock and Fidelity’s Bitcoin spot ETFs are even more impressive because most of the other ETFs ranked on the list were “BYOA” – Bring Your Own Assets – type funds. BYOAs are ETFs that have one investor behind all of their assets under management
IBIT and FBTC have seen inflows every day they traded since launch, which Balchunas described as “literally unprecedented”.
The Wall Street giants’ funds weren’t the only Bitcoin ETFs on the auspicious list. ARK Invest & 21Shares’s BTC spot ETF – ARKB – and Bitwise’s BITB also took a spot among the top 25, landing 20th and 22nd, respectively.
Meanwhile, the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF – which became the first Bitcoin-focused exchange-traded fund to trade in the US when it launched as a futures product in October 2021 – also made the list in the seventh position with $1.36 billion in AUM in the first month.
Bitcoin Spot ETFs Have Amassed Over $7 Billion Since Launching in Jan 2024
Although Grayscale’s GBTC is the largest spot Bitcoin ETF that currently trades in the US, it was left out of Blachunas’s list because he only took into account funds that debuted as an ETF.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) started life in 2013 as a closed-end fund and was only greenlit by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to be converted into an ETF and listed in exchanges earlier this year.
Balchunas acknowledged that the mass outflow of funds from Grayscale’s GBTC was a factor in determining the flow performance of the spot Bitcoin ETFs and some of those funds may have received seed funding.
As of February 5, GBTC recorded $6 billion in total outflows, which was offset by the $7.7 billion in Bitcoin that has been accumulated by the 10 spot Bitcoin ETFs launched in the US last month.
BlackRock and Fidelity’s Bitcoin Funds Placed Among the Top 25 US-Issued ETFs
Bloomberg reported that IBIT and FBTC even stood out against some of the largest ETFs in terms of flows this year. The iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF topped $3.9 billion in inflows, sitting 5th among the top 0.16% of all US-issued ETF products. Fidelity’s Bitcoin Fund wasn’t far behind as it came in eighth with $2.51 billion in inflows.
IBIT was only surpassed by three broad index funds tracking the S&P 500 and Vanguard’s Total Stock Market ETF.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $46,199 – up 3.7% in the last 24 hours.
