Spot Bitcoin ETFs’ Debut Month Attracts a Record $10 Billion

Amid the crypto market rally and Bitcoin temporarily reaching USD $50k (AUD $77.4k) for the first time in a long time, one piece of news may have been hidden among all the headlines of an impending bull run: the success of the Spot Bitcoin ETFs.

While we saw a lot of hype prior to the approval of these ETFs—even a fake approval tweet by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—­the actual approval was met with a lukewarm reaction by the market, and BTC initially dropping over 20% in the first 12 days.

Of course, since then the market rallied and probably felt the pinch of the increasing demand for Spot ETFs. While initially a lot of investors sold out from Grayscale’s GBTC and bought right into Spot Bitcoin ETFs with lower fees, the launch of these 10 ETFs (including GBTC) has shaped up to be one of the most successful launches for a US ETF ever.

Bloomberg Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said the net cumulative flows for the ETFs including GBTC doubled to over USD $3bn (AUD $4.64bn) which he compared to the Gold (GLD) ETF needing 2 years to get to that.

Not only is now a record-breaking USD $500m (AUD $774m) flowing into the 9 exchange traded funds, every single day, but they have also amassed a whopping USD $10bn (AUD $15.5bn) in just one month.

Bitcoin On the Way to Replace Gold as Risk-Off Asset of Choice?

Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood said in a recent interview that investors are starting to increasingly turn away from investing in Gold and instead opt for Bitcoin as it has become much more accessible.

Relative to gold, Bitcoin has been rising. There’s now a substitution into Bitcoin and we think that is going to continue now that there is a less friction-filled way to access Bitcoin.

Cathie Wood

Wood expects BTC to prove itself to become a risk-off asset just like Gold in any possible future financial turmoil.