According to Eric Balchunas, “Another intense volume day for the Nine with well over $2b traded. $IBIT broke its personal record again w/ $1.3b (for context that’s more than most large cap US stocks trade),” as posted on social network X. He added that he did not know “if this is a new normal or some kind of short-term algo/arb-related burst to the HODL.”
Great news keeps coming from the Nasdaq-listed BlackRock Bitcoin ETF (IBIT). In fact, for two days it has registered new absolute records in terms of daily trading volume.
Although almost all Bitcoin ETFs are registering very high trading volumes today, IBIT ETFs are really breaking records.
On Monday they had surpassed 1.3 billion dollars for the first time in their short history, and yesterday they did even better, touching 1.37 billion. The previous record was recorded on the same day of its market launch, that is, Thursday, January 11, 2024, when they exceeded one billion dollars. Since then, this threshold was not exceeded again until Monday, February 12.
On February 12, the price of Bitcoin exceeded $50,000 for the first time since the end of 2021, while Monday and Tuesday were the days in which it went from $50,000 to $57,000 for the first time and also $55,000. from the end of 2021. In November 2021, the price of Bitcoin recorded its all-time high, exceeding $69,000.
Regarding the BlackRock ETF, for the first time since its launch on the markets it recorded two consecutive days with a daily trading volume exceeding one billion dollars.
Decline of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and Rise of BlackRock’s Bitcoin Spot ETF
The reason for such drop is that many former holders of GBTC shares are selling them because the new ETFs shares are more competitive, particularly thanks to lower commission costs.
To date, GBTC still holds more Bitcoin than all other ETFs in the world combined, but this is a record that is about to end. In fact, the two main alternative ETFs, IBIT and FBTC, alone hold around 230,000 BTC, or more than half of GBTC, and at this rate they should be able to reach that figure in about a month.
Therefore, it is not surprising that if on January 11 GBTC’s daily trading volume was greater than the sum of all other Bitcoin ETFs combined, while yesterday only IBIT recorded a trading volume one and a half times greater than that of GBTC.
New ETFs Rise
Although GBTC still temporarily dominates the Bitcoin ETF market, albeit only in terms of AUM and not volumes, two of the new ETFs look set to replace Grayscale in the near term.
The first, as already highlighted, is BlackRock’s IBIT, which to date is already the largest in terms of trading volume and the second in terms of AUM with more than 130,000 BTC corresponding to more than 7 billion dollars.
The second is Fidelity’s FBTC, which came to own almost one hundred thousand Bitcoins, corresponding to an AUM of more than 5.5 billion dollars.
As far as AUM is concerned, it seems only a matter of time, and all this is perfectly justified by its lack of competitiveness in the markets against IBIT, FBTC, but also against the others. Ark’s ARKB is also on the rise, surpassing Purpose’s historic BTCC to rank fourth overall after GBTC, IBIT, and FBTC. 2024 is in all respects a year of truly significant changes for the Bitcoin market.
By Audy Castaneda
