In recent days, record prices have been recorded for the new ETFs on Bitcoin spot since they were listed on the stock exchange on January 11 of this year.
Indeed, excluding the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, there were simply no new ETFs in 2021, when Bitcoin reached its all-time highs, so the recent record prices for their shares are absolute.
Summary
The boom of BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETFs and record prices
IBIT, which stands for iShares Bitcoin Trust, is BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF. In fact, iShares is a subsidiary of BlackRock.
This ETF now holds more than 150,000 BTC, and has an AUM approaching 9.5 billion dollars, constantly increasing.
At the time of its listing on the Nasdaq on January 11th, the opening price was $28, briefly rising above $29.6 on the same day of the launch.
Later the price dropped to $22 at the end of January, only to soar in February.
The record was set on February 28, almost reaching $36.8. At that point, compared to the launch price, the gain was already 31% in about a month and a half.
In the following days it then dropped to $35, with a 25% gain on the initial launch price.
Instead, if we look at the performance in February, the percentage gain rises to 46% in just one month.
It should be noted that these ETFs do not issue 1 share for every BTC they hold, but in the case of IBIT, approximately 0.57 thousandths of a Bitcoin correspond to each share, whose current market value is about $35.
The boom of Fidelity’s ETF
The other new Bitcoin ETF that is setting record numbers is FBTC, which is Fidelity’s. In fact, from a price perspective, all the new Bitcoin ETFs have reached record levels at the end of February, but in terms of volumes and AUM, IBIT and FBTC dominate.
FBTC now holds more than 103,000 BTC, with an AUM exceeding $6.3 billion and constantly growing.
The opening price on the stock exchange was $42, but by the end of January it had dropped below $34.
In February, it jumped by 46% going from $37 to $54, but with a peak above $56 on the 28th.
The trend obviously follows that of the BTC price, and therefore it is essentially identical to that of IBIT.
As for Grayscale’s GBTC, which has been around for more than 10 years even though it wasn’t an ETF before January 11, the price records of February 2024 are not very far from the absolute ones of 2021.
Indeed, on February 28th it reached $57.5, while the all-time high is still $58.2 in February 2021.
The fact is that not being an ETF, and therefore not being able to easily liquidate the BTC held, for a long time it was priced at a significant discount to NAV, so much so that in November 2021, while the price of Bitcoin was hitting all-time highs, the price of GBTC shares barely managed to exceed $55.
So the maximum price of GBTC in February 2024 is higher than that of November 2021.
The record of volumes and prices of Bitcoin ETFs
However, the most striking data concerns the daily trading volumes.
Indeed, on the day of the stock market debut, there was a first peak in trading that brought the total daily volume of Bitcoin ETFs to over 4 billion dollars.
On February 28, however, a new all-time record was set for these derivative products, with over $7 billion in trades. Just yesterday, the daily trading volume exceeded that of January 11 with almost $4.7 billion.
However, it is worth noting that if on January 11th more than half of those volumes were done by GBTC alone, yesterday and the day before yesterday the dominant player was IBIT by BlackRock.
Meanwhile, the BTC held by the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust has decreased from 620,000 to 438,000, and is constantly declining.
The expansion
These volumes could even increase further in the future.
In fact, there are still many major trading platforms that do not yet host them, and some of the most important seem intent on adding them.
Furthermore, some managers of the new Bitcoin ETFs, first and foremost BlackRock, are working to bring their crypto derivatives also to foreign markets, starting for example from Brazil.
There is such a demand worldwide, especially for BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, that it seems quite likely to arrive everywhere over time.
It should also be added that by mid-2024, Bitcoin ETFs could also land on the Hong Kong stock exchange, becoming a reference point for the entire huge Asian market.
For Bitcoin, 2024 is proving to be a turning point, as the doors to traditional global financial markets are literally opening up for it.
