The numbers don't lie: The Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) approved in January have been wildly popular.
Data from Farside Investors shows that total net inflows for Bitcoin ETFs have now hit $20.2 billion. And that's even accounting for the $20 billion that has fled from Grayscale's fund.
In the ETF world, flows are the amount of money coming in and out of a product. They are a good measurement of how well a fund is performing as it shows how active the vehicle is.
Investors have put billions of dollars into the funds but have also cashed billions out of Grayscale's GBTC. Grayscale's investment product previously operated like a closed-end fund, making it difficult for investors to redeem shares. Its conversion in January led to a flood of capital out of the product as investors sought cheaper ETFs or cashed out their gains.
But Grayscale clients are more or less done cashing out, it seems, and money is fast entering Bitcoin ETFs from other issuers again—particularly this week, with nearly $2 billion in inflows already.
Of the 10 ETFs currently trading, Wall Street titan BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust has received the lion's share of inflows, with over $22.4 billion, Farside numbers show.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that gold ETFs took five years to reach the same overall flows as what the Bitcoin ETFs have notched in 10 months.
Bitcoin ETFs have crossed $20b in total net flows (the most imp number, most difficult metric to grow in ETF world) for first time after huge week of $1.5b. For context, it took gold ETFs about 5yrs to reach same number. Total assets now $65b, also a high water mark. pic.twitter.com/edldEimfqd
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) October 17, 2024
ETFs allow investors to buy shares that track the price of an underlying asset, which could be anything from gold and foreign currencies to Bitcoin and tech stocks.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gave the green light to 10 spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in January after a decade of denials.
A flood of capital fast entered the space following the approval of the products as investors and institutions previously cautious about buying the cryptocurrency could do so via brokerage accounts; major asset managers like BlackRock, Grayscale, and Fidelity take care of custody and buying and selling the digital coins.
Speculators then slowed down putting cash into the products when it was uncertain what the Federal Reserve would do regarding historically high interest rates. But following the central bank's decision to cut last month, investors have again gained an appetite for “risk-on” assets like Bitcoin.
Bitcoin's price currently stands at $67,373, according to CoinGecko, after having risen by nearly 11% over seven days. Just two months after the Bitcoin ETFs were approved, the biggest digital coin hit a new all-time high of $73,737.
Balchunas previously told Decrypt that Bitcoin, which has had its share of ups and downs this year, would have struggled to retain its value had it not been for the new investment vehicles trading on American stock exchanges.