Bitcoin ETF Trading Spikes to Busiest Session Since January Debut

Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds posted the most trading since their debut in the U.S. last month.

Volume amounted to nearly $2 billion, the highest total since the first day of trading on Jan. 11, Bloomberg Intelligence senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted on X.

VanEck's HODL ETF posted just under $400 million in volume, WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund (BTCW) saw $221.9 million in trades and BitWise's had $178.29 million.

Balchunas posted that VanEck's HODL "is going wild today with $258 million in volume already, a 14x jump over its daily average."

"And it's not one big investor (which would make sense) but rather 32,000 individual trades, which is 60x its average," he continued.

It has been suggested that the reason for the spike could be that U.S. markets were closed on Monday for Presidents' Day, and trades over the weekend were settled on the first day of the workweek.

As for the price of bitcoin itself, it's changing hands just above $52,200, according to CoinDesk Indicies data, as the U.S. ends its trading day.

“The strong Bitcoin ETF inflow by institutional investors indicates risk-on sentiment. Meanwhile, Gold ETFs have seen a net outflow. The outflow of gold ETFs might be due to global investors’ rising demand for US equity," Greta Yuan, head of research at VDX, a Hong Kong digital assets platform, wrote in an email interview.

Gold ETFs have experienced significant outflows since the launch of 10 spot bitcoin ETFs on Jan. 11, with nearly $10 billion in inflows into the two largest bitcoin ETFs, although this does not necessarily imply a direct migration of funds from gold to bitcoin, CoinDesk previously reported.

"While U.S. equity keeps going higher, led by AI stocks, we will likely see BTC, ETH keep reaching higher ahead of bitcoin halving,” she continued.

CORRECTION (March 27, 2024, 02:48 UTC): Adjusts the description of VDX to reflect that it is not a licensed exchange.