Bitcoin futures ETF daily volumes hit $2 billion record in big first day for spot funds

Bitcoin BTC -1.44% futures ETF daily trading volumes — including the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF (XBTF) and Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BTF) — reached an all-time high of $2 billion yesterday amid a big first day for the 11 newly-launched spot bitcoin ETFs.

The milestone was achieved just one day after hitting a prior record of $1.4 billion, according to The Block’s data dashboard.

The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF — the first bitcoin ETF product in the U.S., launched in October 2021 — dominates daily trading volume for bitcoin futures ETFs, responsible for $1.97 billion, or 97%, of yesterday’s $2 billion record.

“BITO smashed its all-time volume record in this historic day with $2 billion traded,” Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas posted on X. “Perhaps some is redemptions but I think more it’s that BITO's liquidity will serve a purpose in mkt maker for a while.”

On Jan. 8, the ProShares bitcoin futures ETF amassed an all-time high of over $2 billion in assets by market close, ProShares global investment strategist Simeon Hyman told The Block on Tuesday. He added that BITO grew 10% last week from $1.8 billion on Jan. 2 and 18% within the last month from $1.7 billion on Dec. 9, 2023.

Big first day for 11 new spot bitcoin ETFs

BlackRock led the pack among the spot bitcoin ETFs that began trading yesterday, with the 11 newly approved products hitting over 700,000 trades , according to Balchunas, and a total trading volume of more than $4.5 billion, according to data from Yahoo Finance compiled by The Block.

BlackRock's spot bitcoin ETF (IBIT) reached $1.05 billion in trading volume, surpassing BITO’s $1 billion first-day futures bitcoin ETF volume in 2021, with Fidelity's FBTC ETF hitting nearly $685 million.

Grayscale's converted spot bitcoin ETF product (GBTC) generated greater trading volume than those two combined, reaching about $2.3 billion. However, Grayscale's ETF is a conversion of its flagship GBTC fund, and it's unclear how much of Grayscale's volume could be capital flowing out of the instrument.

Balchunas speculated that most of Grayscale's volume is likely "all selling," as opposed to an inflow of fresh capital. "Very easy argument to be made that a ton of this volume was selling of [Grayscale's fund] and buying of other ETFs for now," Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart added. Whereas, given both BlackRock and Fidelity's ETFs are new, it's likely the majority of the trading volume for their products is made up of inflows of capital.

The ARK 21Shares bitcoin ETF (ARKB) generated $278 million worth of trading volume on day one, and Bitwise (BITB) $122 million. Of the remaining ETFs, Franklin Templeton (EZBC), Invesco Galaxy (BTCO) and VanEck (HODL) all witnessed trading volumes below $100 million. Bringing up the rear, Valkyrie (BRRR), WisdomTree (BTCW) and Hashdex's (DEFI) trading volumes are still below $10 million.

“Easily the biggest day one splash in ETF history,” Balchunas said .