Bitcoin Futures ETF Sees Biggest Ever 'Day One' With $1B In 'Natural' Volume

The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF BITO made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, closing 4.65% higher at a price of $41.94 per share.

What Happened: The fund made history, not just for being the first Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund to trade in the U.S., but also for recording the highest ever “natural” day one trading volume.

A total of 24.313 million shares were traded on Tuesday and the fund ended the day with about $1 billion in trading volume, according to Bloomberg’s ETF Strategist Eric Balchunas.

$BITO just about at $1b in total volume today (curr $993m but trades still trickling in). Easily the biggest Day One of any ETF in terms of 'natural' volume. It also traded more than 99.5% of all ETFs (incl some bigs like $DIA, $ARKK, $SLV). It def defied our expectations.. pic.twitter.com/rWIPSAJboT

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) October 19, 2021

Balchunas reported BITO was traded more than 99.5% of ETFs on the market, including heavyweights like the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust DIA, ARK Innovation ETF ARKK, and iShares Silver Trust SLV.

See Also: 7 Stocks That Could Capitalize On First Bitcoin ETF's Debut

The ETF strategist defines “natural volume” as several grassroots trades as opposed to one large order which appears as volume despite being a pre-planned trade from an institutional investor.

If we don't exclude ETFs where their Day One volume was literally one pre-planned giant investor or BYOA (not natural), it still ranks #2 overall. Here's that list. The reason some of these shouldn't be included IMO is they don't really represent grassroots interest. pic.twitter.com/wmZiHnpFrS

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) October 19, 2021

“The other result of today is it makes life that much harder for the next in line ETFs to succeed. Time is of the essence,” said Balchunas.

Once an ETF gains traction and significant liquidity, that liquidity becomes “virtually impossible” to steal because the ETF is seen as "the one," asserted Balchunas.

Several Bitcoin futures ETFs are awaiting approval from the SEC, but the next ETF in-line to be listed appears to be the Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF.

Valkyrie’s Bitcoin futures ETF is expected to go live on Oct. 20 under the ticker $BTFD — a phrase often used in the crypto community when urging investors to “buy the f***ing dip."

Price Action: At the time of writing, Bitcoin BTC/USD was trading at $63,900 gaining 2.65% over 24 hours.

Photo: Executium on Unsplash