Just a few months back, everyone from the crypto community was rejoicing at the SEC’s landmark spot ETF approval decision. Eleven products began trading in the second week of January, and several back-to-back records were clinched. However, it seems like the hype and hoopla has now completely evaporated.
Data from SoSo Value revealed that most spot ETFs - including Grayscale’s GBTC, BlackRock’s IBIT, Fidelity’s FBTC, and Ark Invest’s ARKB - registered a daily netflow of $0. Bitwise’s BITB was the only exception that registered flows. Investors poured-in $12 million into the fund over the past day.
Gyayscale’s flagship product - GBTC - that got converted into an ETF, had been on a slippery slope all this while. It was primarily registering outflows, for funds worth more than $17 billion had been pulled out from its product since the conversion. Thus, the latest $0 flow comes in as a blessing in disguise for Grayscale. The cumulative flows into all other vehicles continue to be in green, ranging in the $15 billion to $2 million bracket.
The recent Hong Kong ETF launch was also disappointing. Right on the heels of the debut, the six listed funds churned out merely $11 million in volume, with Bitcoin ETFs posting $8.5 million in volume, and Ether filling up the remaining $2.5 million. According to Farside Investors’ data, all three Ethereum ETFs registered outflows over the past day. The tale was the other way around for Bitcoin funds. While Bosera registered the highest positive flows, AMC’s amount was negligible, and Harvest flashed a neutral 0.
Asking people to refrain from drawing parallels, Senior ETF Analyst for Bloomberg, Eric Balchunas recently said,
“Yeah as we advised, don't expect big numbers in HK vs US (which is in league of [its] own ETF-wise). So in that regard, these [HK] ETFs [are] already as big to their local mkt [market] as US ones are to its.”
In other parallel ETF-related news, a recent filing revealed that Grayscale withdrew its proposal to list and trade Ether future ETFs. In March, the SEC had yet again delayed its decision regarding the same, despite green-flagging a bunch of Ether ETFs from the same boat [Bitwise, ProShares, VanEck] in October 2023.
