Spot bitcoin ETFs reached a total volume of $4.5 billion on the first trading day

The first trading day for spot bitcoin ETFs broke records, with BlackRock, Grayscale, and Fidelity leading in volume. However, one issuer did not perform as expected.

Aggregate data from Yahoo Finance shows that the total volume of 10 bitcoin ETFs exceeded $4.5 billion on the first trading day.

BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF, iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), was the best among the newly listed funds, trading with just over $1 billion in volume, accounting for 22 percent of the group’s total volume, according to Yahoo Finance data.

Immediately behind it was Fidelity, which had a volume of around $685 million on the first trading day. Grayscale’s ETF, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), recorded a total volume of $2.2 billion.

Hashdex’s BTC ETF did not start trading on January 11. Although the SEC approved Hashdex’s 19b-4 request, which would allow its spot ETF product to be listed on U.S. exchanges, the SEC did not approve the S-1 form, meaning Hashdex’s DEFI still trades only as a futures-based ETF.

The trading volume includes inflows and outflows and does not provide a complete picture of how much buying occurred compared to selling.

Senior Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas theorized that the vast majority of trading activity for GBTC was selling as investors rotated from the existing fund into newer products with lower fees, such as BlackRock’s and Fidelity’s ETFs. His colleague James Seyffart shares the same view.

Meanwhile, the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF experienced record-breaking trading activity, with over $2 billion in total volume on the day.

It is also theorized that this largely consisted of selling as investors shifted from exposure to bitcoin futures to cheaper, less volatile exposure based on the spot price.

Timothy Peterson, an investment manager at Cane Macro, estimated that buying activity in the ETFs means that approximately 47,000 bitcoins, worth $2.1 billion at current prices, will need to be purchased on the spot market.

Balchunas stated that investors looking to understand the impact of ETFs on underlying bitcoin purchases will likely have to wait until January 13 to get a better picture of spot inflows.