Since its launch on Oct. 19 Proshares’ Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) has been a popular choice with traders, rising to the top 2% of all ETFs in terms of total trading volume.
Bloomberg’s Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted on Nov. 11 that the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) had $400 million worth of shares traded yesterday, with its average volume consistently putting it in the top 2% of all ETFs.
$BITO and $BTF both had their biggest volume days in about two weeks. $BITO with a $400m traded, which is not only a ton but = 25% turnover in one day- indicating its usage as a trading tool. pic.twitter.com/ukDGeSEa6F
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) November 10, 2021
BITO has seen roughly $112.79 million combined inflows over the past nine days. While the figure pales in comparison to the first two days of the fund’s listing that saw $567.16 million and $489.51 million worth of inflows each, Baluchunas noted that “this kind of consistent flow-age is highly rare” for a newly launched ETF.
BITO launched on the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 19 and has since accumulated more than $1.4 billion worth of assets under management (AUM). Investor appetite for the fund remains high although the price of BITO has failed to surge and is currently sitting at $42.3, which is slightly below its initial listing price around $43.2.g. Balchunas suggested that options volume may be the driving factor behind BITO at this stage.
There seems little hope of a Bitcoin ETF tracking the spot price being approved in the immediate future, with Balchunas suggesting that VanEck’s spot ETF would almost certainly be knocked back by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the Nov. 14 deadline. The analyst put the odds at a “bleak” 200-1.
The SEC has 100 hours left until they have to approve or deny the VanEck spot Bitcoin ETF (my guess is they drop it Friday after mkt close but who knows). While our odds of approval are a bleak 200-1 the denial statement could offer some clues as to when it could happen @JSeyff https://t.co/Y2n3qPAvIp
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) November 10, 2021
Related: BREAKING: BlockFi files for physically-backed Bitcoin ETF
On Nov. 10, ProShares investment strategist Leks Gerlak told U.S. News & World Report that BITO should have no issues with reflecting the value of Bitcoin as futures contracts play a key role in determining its spot value:
“There is no single reference price for Bitcoin, and the trading price of Bitcoin varies from one exchange to another, often between 1% to 2%, and sometimes by 4% to 5%. Expert research on this topic finds that the Bitcoin futures market dominates the price discovery process.”
“Over the past few years, Bitcoin futures and Bitcoin have historically provided very similar returns. Both correlation and beta have been very close to one to Bitcoin,” he added.
