Here are the trading volumes on IBIT, which is Blackrock's bitcoin ETF and is destined to be the winner of the low-cost spot race:
- Day 1 - 38m shares
- Day 2 - 23m shares
- Day 3 - 13.65m shares with 35 mins of trading to go
The moderate volatility in bitcoin today might be some of that but bitcoin is up 1.3% today after a poor start, so that should have pulled in some dip buyers.
We will have to wait to see the Day 3 inflows but based on the volumes, it's not looking good. It's a similar story with the other 9 new bitcoin ETFs with volumes all below half of Day 1 and some of them already looking dead-on-arrival, particularly WisdomTree's offering with just 17k shares traded today.
The ongoing question remains: What will happen to all the bitcoin locked up in GBTC. It's now trading at just a 1.5% discount to NAV while charging 1.5% in fees (compared to around 0.2% for others). Presumably money should flow to the low-cost ETFs but maybe I'm putting too much faith in an efficient market.
As for bitcoin, it continues to coil at the low end of the recent range. Keep an eye out for a bigger move soon.
