Spot Bitcoin ETFs set trading volume record amid BTC price high

U.S.-based Bitcoin ETFs saw $10 billion in trading volume on March 5, beating last week’s $7.7 billion record.

The United States spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETF) had a record $10 billion in trading volume on March 5 as Bitcoin notched a new all-time high before it plummeted around 12% over the next five hours.

“These are bananas numbers for ETFs under [two months] old,” Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said in a March 5 X post reporting the figures.

Bitcoin analyst Alessandro Ottaviani posted a slightly lower trading volume of $9.58 billion for the funds — which still beat the previous record of $7.7 billion set on Feb. 28.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) saw the most volume at $3.7 billion, while the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) respectively tallied $2.8 billion and $2 billion, per Ottaviani’s figures.

Bitcoin saw significant price swings over the U.S. trading day, hitting a new all-time high of $69,200 at around 3:00 pm UTC on March 5, then falling 12% to a low of $60,860 about five hours later, according to CoinGecko.

Bitcoin has partially recovered to $63,350 at the time of writing.

IBIT and FBTC both fell around 8.6% on the day, with other spot Bitcoin ETFs recording similar price drops, according to Google Finance.

Related: Bitcoin just had its best day ever — Is $100K BTC price programmed?

In a March 5 X post, pseudonymous analyst Bit Paine joked to those new to Bitcoin through the ETFs that the price swing was “a monthly ritual during bull markets” to flush out “leveraged degenerates.”

“You are not used to this. In your markets, the government steps in to stop trading [and] bail you out if your boomer stocks fall more than 10% in a day,” they said.

“You have a point,” Balchunas replied. “We have limit up and limit down rules and the Fed to protect us from this kinda thing.”